Mayor Sara Duterte said the city will allocate about P12 million to build its own crematorium.
She said there is a need for the city to prepare to avoid overwhelming the three private crematoriums in accommodating the coronavirus-infected patients.
Speaking over the Davao City Disaster Radio on Friday, the mayor said the facility will be built at Wireless Cemetery.
“We are encountering challenges with the three crematoriums because their machines sometimes break down,” she said.
Currently, there are 63 cadavers of which 14 are still for cremation, which she said has caused a queue at the private facilities. Not all of them died from the virus, however. To date, COVID-19 has claimed 19 lives in Davao City.
Under the current situation, the city government covers all expenses for the cremation of the cadavers of patients who died from the virus.
The cremation complies with the guidelines of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist to cremate or bury the cadavers of patients within 12-hours.
Meanwhile, Duterte urged the public to only source their COVID-related information from the official social media accounts of the city and the Department of Health.
This, after two versions of a supposed extension of the enhanced community quarantine were posted on social media with conflicting dates–one is on May 25 and the other on May 31.
“Verify the source of the social media card that you share to see if it’s official or confirmed information,” she said.
The mayor said that legitimate information is available on Davao City’s official accounts on Facebook and the national government’s Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), Radio Television Malacañang, People’s Television Network), the Philippine News Agency, and the Philippine Information Agency.
“The best thing that you can do to avoid panic and avoid spreading misinformation is not to share that information if you can’t verify that it is true, ” she said.
