Forensic expert from the University of the Philippines Manila, Dr. Racquel Fortun, recommended ways to improve the retrieval and identification of the dead during disasters based on her experience with typhoon Yolanda. They are as follows:

• A plan on how to collect, accommodate, examine and dispose massive number of dead bodies must be developed. This will ensure that issues concerning the remains, such as retrieval, identification, storage, and burial, are systematically conducted by the right people and agencies. As she recounted in Leyte, victims’ bodies were randomly picked as they were found. Necessary equipment and tools to preserve the bodies, such as refrigerated storage trucks, were not available.

• Identify responsible agency for the handling of the remains. The Department of Health (DOH) must primarily coordinate the identification of the dead because death investigation is a health issue.

• National government should mobilize health volunteers from unaffected areas who will support the disaster operations. This will ensure that help is always available to the affected areas especially when the local health professionals are also victims of the tragedy.

• A system for death investigation of mass casualties must put in place. The system will enable for organized forensic investigation of the remains to properly establish the fact of death, identify the deceased, and determine the cause and manner of demise. While DNA testing would have been helpful for forensic investigation in Tacloban, Dr. Fortun said that the lack of a system and the magnitude of the tragedy hindered them from using the technology for accurate DNA identifications of the victims.

According to Dr. Fortun, establishing the victims’ identities is important, not for the dead, but for the living relatives because it has both emotional and legal implications to them. As Dr. Fortun explained, legal declaration of death helps settle issues on inheritance, remarriage, and criminal cases. It also helps families find closure from the death.

Dr. Fortun presented these recommendations during the 32^nd Anniversary celebration of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (PCHRD-DOST) on 14 March 2014.