Families Urged to Retrieve Loved Ones’ Remains From Tacloban’s El Reposo Cemetery Before Its Rehabilitation
Nearly 4,000 human remains are still buried at El Reposo, the public Catholic cemetery in Tacloban City, Leyte, as their families have yet to retrieve them ahead of the cemetery’s planned rehabilitation.
The city government and the local Catholic Church issued an advisory in 2023 that stopped further burials at El Reposo to give way to the rehabilitation, according to a report by INQUIRER.net published on Monday, November 2, 2026.
Based on city government records, more than 12,500 people had been laid to rest at the cemetery. Over 8,000 remains have already been retrieved and transferred by their families, leaving close to 4,000 still at the site.
The remains that were already taken out, mostly bones, were collected, identified and placed in a common grave so that families can claim them more easily and bring them to other cemeteries.
Credula Enerlan, who is in charge of the cemetery, said they continue to appeal to families to retrieve the remains of their departed relatives. Those who already did so transferred them to the cemetery run by the Archdiocese of Palo in Palo, Leyte, or to other public and private burial grounds in Tacloban.
Enerlan admitted that money is a problem for some families. “Transferring them to other cemeteries can be costly, even if what remains are already bones,” she said.
She added that some of the dead no longer have relatives around, while other families may no longer know the exact location of old graves or have stopped visiting the cemetery for various reasons.
The report also noted that several empty graves at El Reposo were recently affected by a demolition carried out by the city government as part of its road-widening project.
From October 31 until the morning of November 2, nearly 200 relatives visited El Reposo for Undas, with many offering prayers and lighting candles at the chapel and the designated candle holders.
One of them, a woman whose grandparents and father-in-law were buried at the cemetery, chose to light candles at the chapel instead of at their old burial sites. She said she hopes the remains of her loved ones are still intact and that her family will someday have enough money to retrieve and transfer them to another cemetery.
Enerlan urged families to visit El Reposo and claim the remains of their loved ones once they have the means to bring them to other burial grounds.
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