LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET—If not for his fingerprints, Santiago Polsito would just be one of the unidentified and unclaimed bodies recovered from landslide-hit Little Kibungan in Barangay Puguis.
His body was one of the first recovered from the rubble on Oct. 9. But it was found headless, causing initial doubts among his kin as to its identity.
No one could remember the clothes he last wore, and there was neither wallet nor identification card on the corpse.
Polsito, 42, had a mole on the neck—the only distinguishing mark on his body, according to his family. But it could not be found because he was decapitated.
Members of the town’s health office posted at Puguis Elementary School, where the recovered bodies were first taken for recording purposes, expressed the belief that a wife would be in the best position to identify any peculiar marks on her husband.
They asked for Polsito’s wife to identify the body. But Polsito, a cab driver, was a bachelor.
It was the fingerprints that allowed a police team to establish that the corpse was indeed Polsito’s.
Second thoughts
At least 73 people died in the massive landslide that all but wiped out the mountainside community of Little Kibungan.
Relatives grieved over Polsito when what was thought to be his body was recovered along with those of his siblings Viola and Gen Clyde.
But according to his sister Divina, she began to have second thoughts when others claimed the body although they were also unsure of its identity.
Divina’s doubts were fueled by the fact that two of her other brothers, Darwin and Colado, were among the six missing persons that rescuers had been trying to find.
Polsito’s body was thus tagged as unidentified, and it lay unclaimed for three days.
Staff members of the La Trinidad health office, led by nurse Claire Pierce, went to the Puguis barangay hall and found that Polsito was a registered voter.
On Sunday, Pierce asked lawyer Bernoulli Binay-an, the town’s election officer, to open the Commission on Elections office at the town hall so they could check Polsito’s voter registration record.
The document showed that Polsito had a mole on the neck. It carried his fingerprints as well.
Print match
Because the mole could not be found, Pierce sought police assistance to identify the body.
Police Officer 2 Voltaire Aoay, a fingerprint examiner, took a sample of the corpse’s fingerprints, compared these with the ones on Polsito’s voter registration record—and found a match.
But Polsito’s kin were not fully convinced, Pierce recalled.
Divina suggested a DNA examination. Pierce told her it was a costly procedure and that the family would have to shell out P20,000.
“We told them that a fee would have to be paid because it would be conducted as a private case. Had a crime been involved, it would be different,” Pierce told the Inquirer.
On Sunday, the Polsitos met with police investigators.
Aoay took pains to explain to the family that fingerprint analysis was one of the most reliable and scientifically approved means of establishing a person’s identity.
“No two persons would have the same fingerprints,” he said, finally convincing the Polsitos.
Prayers from Arroyo
On a visit Tuesday to Puguis Elementary School, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo prayed for Polsito.
She condoled with the grieving families and then entered the classroom where Polsito’s body was lying.
No one told the President that the body in the closed coffin was headless.
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