A funeral parlor has been tagged for allegedly selling the dead body of a woman who was reported missing last year.

ABS-CBN News reported that kidnapping victim Merlina Gamiao had been killed, and her body allegedly sold by the kidnapper to the funeral parlor.

Through the funeral parlor’s owner, authorities from the Philippine National Police Anti-Kidnapping Group (PNP-AKG) found out that the body was sold for PHP10,000(US$188.29) along with another unidentified body for the same price.

The owner said that he then sold the bodies to a “broker” identified as Edmund Adlawan for PHP36,000 (US$677.83).

What did this broker do with the bodies? He allegedly rented them out.

PNP-AKG Director C/Supt. Glenn Dumlao told ABS-CBN News that Adlawan bought the bodies in September and had been renting them out to fake wakes until January.

According to GMA News’ Balitambayan, the wakes were a cover for a local gambling game called saklaan.

Saklaans are illegal but authorities generally let it slide during wakes because it is one way the family of the deceased finances the funeral services. To take advantage of this loophole, it is not uncommon for sakla operators to rent bodies and stage fake wakes.

Dumlao said that Adlawan only stopped renting the body out when it started to deteriorate.

“When [the body] wasn’t selling in saklaans anymore because the body started deteriorating, that’s the time that Adlawan sold this cadaver to [a] certain university as [a] medical specimen,” he said in English and Filipino.

Authorities found the woman’s body inside the university’s dissecting room.

This obviously concerned the Department of Health (DOH). The agency wonders how the school even got hold of the body when the police are usually quite strict about releasing unclaimed cadavers from funeral parlors.

Adlawan, the funeral parlor, and the medical school are currently being investigated by the police.

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