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CEBU CITY, Philippines - Seven out of 203 bodies that arrived in Cebu for examination from the Princess of the Stars sea tragedy have been identified and are ready for release to their families, an official said Monday.
Doctor Renato Bautista, chief medico-legal officer of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said he already signed seven death certificates.
He declined to release names for now citing “ security reasons.”
A call was made on Monday for medical students in Cebu City, especially third year and fourth year students, to volunteer to help forensic experts draw blood samples and oral smears for DNA sampling.
It may take two weeks to finish collecting samples from more than 4,000 persons, said Cebu City Councilor Gerardo Carillo.
“We need volunteers. I hope in the name of public service they will respond to our call,” Carillo said.
Even with additional Cebu City police and medical personnel, the teams can only interview and process 300 to 400 people a day for the ante-mortem data, Carillo said.
The ante-mortem interviews will supplement the data from DNA tests.
About 3,000 DNA test kits that will be used to extract the samples arrived from abroad on Monday.
As of 6 p.m., the NBI and the foreign forensic team of the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) examined 137 bodies since their work started last June 27.
The Disaster Action Center in the Cebu City Sports Center has been converted into a one-stop-shop government processing hub for families filing claims over the ship mishap and for getting blood and tissue samples from relatives for DNA testing.
There were 18 tables set up for this procedure with more tables coming to speed up the work.
Families can no longer sleep over at the action center. Eighty percent of the area will be reserved for DNA sampling with the rest of the area for processing of documents for all claims.
At the Capitol, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia asked forensic experts to set aside two days to work on DNA sampling for families of Sulpicio victims who come from different parts of Cebu province.
Garcia said this would make it easier for the Capitol to send a bus to fetch the families from their homes and bring them to Cebu City.
Dr. Bautista said they may finish their DNA sampling in three to six months.
He told Cebu Daily News governor they could work faster on the extraction of 250 DNA samples daily with the arrival of their kits yesterday. But the analysis of DNA samples would take awhile.
He said there is a big chance some of the cadavers in the funeral parlor are not from the sunken Sulpicio vessel but from other vessels that sank nearby when the typhoon hit. /With a report from Correspondent Chris Ligan and Reporter Doris Bongcac
