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Philippines: Inflation barely touches cost of dying
MANILA, Philippines — Consumer prices continue to rise, but galloping inflation has so far hardly affected the cost of dying and the prices of items for remembering the dead.
As people visit cemeteries this week to remember their dearly departed, vendors of flowers and candles in Manila said their prices have remained nearly the same as in the All Saints’ Day period last year.
For their part, supervisors of two major funeral parlor chains said prices of their service packages have increased only slightly despite the high inflation rate.
The supervisors, however, said price increases are inevitable as they encouraged people to prepare early for burial expenses.
Jacqueline Merculio, family relations supervisor at Loyola Memorial Chapels and Crematorium Inc.’s Guadalupe branch, said preparing for death has benefits, especially these days when soaring inflation rates are hogging the headlines.
“You can never tell. Maybe, five years from now, you would need funeral services,” she said in a telephone interview.
Part of the preparations that individuals can make is to take a look at various funeral service packages which they can purchase now.
At Loyola, Merculio said individuals can choose from various funeral, burial and cremation service packages that they can pay in full now for future use.
As the packages are not subject to price increase, she said payment made now assures the customer that there would be no additional costs when the time comes for the service to be used.
“We will have a memorandum of agreement where you can choose the package you want and you will make a one-time payment. This is not affected by price increase. So, whatever you pay for now, that’s it,” Merculio said.
Funeral service packages can cost anywhere from P70,000 to P1 million, depending on a customer’s preference.
The basic package, which costs P70,000 to P130,000, includes the casket made of ordinary wood, retrieval of cadaver, embalming, flowers as well as chapel or venue for viewing of remains for four days.
Rates go higher if the customer opts for a bigger viewing chapel, more elaborate flower arrangements and casket and to have food catered for visitors.
For Loyola’s cremation services, the package starts at P150,000 which comes with body retrieval, embalming, flowers, viewing chapel and aluminum urn.
Merculio said the rate for the basic package has stayed the same from last year, but the cost of other packages has been slightly adjusted following a review last June.
“We upgraded price in the premium package. It may be partly due to inflation. We are just following what happens in the economy,” she said.
Just last month, the country’s inflation rate hit 6.7 percent, the highest in nine years.
Meanwhile, at Golden Haven Memorial Chapels and Crematorium in Las Piñas City, the family relations supervisor said rates of funeral services, which include retrieval of the body, embalming, casket, flowers and the chapel starting at P102,000 have so far not changed.
Even with rising prices of goods and services related to the production of flower bouquets and candles, businessmen might have no choice but to retain the prices of flower bouquets and candles until Nov. 2, All Souls’ Day.
As of yesterday, prices of flower arrangements at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City range from P70 to P200, depending on the size and the types of flowers used.
Source: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/10/30/1864345/inflation-barely-touches-cost-dying#iF2TJizhBCGHvhsc.99