Undas brings seasonal work, extra income to Iligan City youth

ILIGAN CITY — While families visit cemeteries to remember their departed loved ones, a group of young Iligan residents sees the annual observance of All Souls’ Day as an opportunity to earn extra income for their households.

For Arjay Cabanlit and his friend Paul Kennerth Zalsos, the days leading to Nov. 2 mean spending long hours at the cemetery, waiting for visitors who need help cleaning and repainting the graves of their loved ones.

The two young men, whose families were displaced from Barangay Villaverde, have turned the annual influx of cemetery visitors into a seasonal source of income.

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Starting Oct. 29, they position themselves at the cemetery, offering to clean graves, repaint tombs and restore faded lettering bearing the names of the dead.

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They charge P300 for cleaning and repainting a grave. The price goes up to P800 if the work includes repainting the lettering.

“We invested P500 to buy paint, paintbrushes and broomsticks for this work,” Cabanlit said.

His family used to live in Barangay Villaverde until their house was destroyed by opical Storm Sendong in December 2011.

They transferred to a government relocation site in Barangay Buruun, about five kilometers from their former home.

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Zalsos, meanwhile, said his family was relocated to Buruun after their house in Villaverde was demolished because they were informal settlers.

A second-year Bachelor of Science in Business Administration student at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, Zalsos takes advantage of the cemetery work during his school break to earn money for his education.

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“This is a big help for my school allowance. Our house is far from the university, so I need a considerable amount of money every day for transportation,” he said.

Their work may be temporary, but the earnings help ease the financial demands of families who have had to rebuild their lives after displacement. /gsg