In Quezon City, a luxury columbarium comes with butler service too
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You can't take your material wealth with you when you pass away. But at least, while you're still breathing on this earth, you can invest and ensure your loved ones will be grieving in solemn peace and comfort as they come together to celebrate your life.
Now, that's really adding new meaning to resting in peace. (That is, besides finding it in the afterlife.)
In the Philippines, the death care industry is expanding, according to a report by international market research group Euromonitor International. In 2015, the Philippine mortuary service was an P18.23 billion business. In 2020, it was projected to be worth P23.62 billion.
Government guidelines during the height of the pandemic pushed Filipinos to accept cremation despite old traditional beliefs. But the increase in customer demand for burial spaces in urban areas resulted in a shortage that pushed costs and the value of memorial lots and vaults to rise.
On Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, beside St. Peter Parish Church, you won't miss a cream-colored building with a grand stained-glass window bearing the image of the Roman goddess Aeternitas, which stretches from the ground floor all the way to its top floor.
Luxury space
Aeternitas Chapels and Columbarium, the hulking edifice, is poised as the first luxury space of its kind in the country. You'll feel it the minute you step inside its hotel-like lobby, which is spacious and has live piano music that sets the calming ambiance. The feel of luxury gets more palpable while walking on Italian tiles, the only flooring material used in the building.
Café chairs and tables are spread at the atrium, which is decorated with fresh foliage. Soon, a popular stylish coffeeshop will open here. A water feature, a fountain, to enhance the calming atmosphere is in the works.
Botanicals are spread everywhere as pockets of potted plants line parts of the building's interiors, evoking a sense of the outdoors coming in. The lighting is sunshiny, as all rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows.
Floors 2 to 6 have more than a dozen funeral chapels, each with its own spacious veranda with potted bamboo plants. Each chapel also comes with LED Smart TVs which come in handy for online streaming of wakes that are now part of the new norm. Modern paintings in muted palettes tastefully decorate the chapels as well.
It's like staying in a hotel for a few days — at least during the wake — with hotel-grade bedrooms in each chapel that come with a comfortable bed, clean beddings, a fully equipped mini-kitchen, and toilet and bath.
The building is pet-friendly with house rules.
Even parking isn't a problem in this nine-story building because it has three basement parking floors.
High-end services
But what sets Aeternitas really apart from other columbariums are its deluxe services, which include having a butler serving the bereaved family as personal assistant throughout the wake.
A trained tribute planner will listen to the needs and wishes of the bereaved family and advise on how to hold the wake and funeral without any hitches.
Aeternitas staff are within reach in the duration of the wake. Aside from the chapel manager, there's also a housekeeping team to ensure each chapel is always neat and sanitized.
Some low-key families from Manila's rich and famous set have held solemn wakes in Aeternitas' chapels as they favor its quietude and inconspicuousness.
Orly Francisco, the man behind this unique concept, said that in times of sadness, such as death in the family, moments spent with grieving members count the most — not the in-between organizing chores such as making sure the place is always clean or beddings in the interior room are changed daily.
Francisco’s friend, who was, at the time, St. Peter’s parish priest Fr. Gerry Tapiador, thought of the name Aeternitas.
Tapiador had previously advised Francisco — who had been buying and selling properties — to hold on to the lot since he can make good use of it someday.
“I want people to feel the convenience when they’re here. The most sensitive people are those who are grieving. They’re already filled with sadness and, most of the time, they feel more sadness at the wake. I want to give them the best service possible," Francisco, whose rags-to-riches life story is also filled with miserable and joyful moments, said in the vernacular.
Zest for living
Francisco turned 70 in July and looks fit due to his healthy regimen, which includes windsurfing, walking, biking, and golf.
If his outlook about grieving may seem — pardon the pun — in high spirits from the usual sense of gloom surrounding most wakes, it's because his own experiences is an inspiration for taking life by the horns and turning it into positive opportunities.
Growing up in Pritil, Tondo, he recalls his mother waking him up at 3 a.m. so they can go to Divisoria to buy wholesale fruits, which they will then resell per piece.
He sold fruits and all sorts of goods, and moonlighted shining shoes and delivering newspapers. “I developed my instinct to read people and figure out what they need. That’s how I made money,” he recounts.
By age 7, Francisco was a practicing entrepreneur with a proficiency in math. He says that, from elementary through high school, he was able to support himself financially and can afford to give his mother money for household needs.
His father was a struggling visual artist and there were eight children to feed, so every little help to augment the family income mattered. Francisco was the fifth child in the brood.
By 12 years old, Francisco had P50,000 saved from hard work. In 1983, he found himself in Saudi Arabia, where the sight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) breaking down in tears after losing money entrusted for fellow Filipinos to hand-carry to the Philippines gave him the idea to engage in money remittance.
Francisco made it big helping OFWs send money safely to their respective families. He now finds it funny that he was once a “double zero” — literally “walang-wala” as in dirt poor.
All the years spent hustling for a living led him to reflect: “When someone says that something can’t be done, I'm challenged to find the solution. Until I find the solution, I won’t quit.”
Always brimming with ideas to make money and to move the "double zeros" that he once was to improve their lot in life, the amiable Francisco says Aeternitas is a conducive space for departed loved ones, but it’s also a profitable, long-term investment for those who are living. — LA, GMA Integrated News
Aeternitas Chapels and Columbary, 170 Commonwealth Ave. Quezon City; contact numbers 09171802427 / 09176292608; email info@aeternitas.ph