By Romeo Ranoco
San Jose - Hundreds of grieving villagers walked under the scorching sun on Thursday to bury 12 of 26 Filipino children poisoned by a cassava snack they ate at school in central Philippines.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered officials to release funds to the families after hearing that some were too poor to afford coffins for their children.
Arroyo met the families of the victims in San Jose village on Thursday and ordered police and health authorities to find out what happened.
"Let us get at the root cause of this tragedy," she said after visiting the village. "I want the police to work with the health authorities to give me a detailed report on why, and how, this unfortunate incident happened."
Most of 90 children, aged between 6 and 13 years, were sent home from hospitals on Bohol island in the central Philippines after their conditions improved, a day after eating the local delicacy during a mid-morning school break on Wednesday.
An army helicopter brought two critically-ill children to a better-equipped medical facility on nearby Cebu island. Less than two dozens remained in the local hospitals.
About 2 000 villagers joined the families of 12 dead children in a mass burial at a public cemetery on Thursday afternoon.
From a Roman Catholic church, men carrying 12 small wooden coffins on their backs walked for over a kilometre under an intense afternoon sun on a dusty village road to the cemetery in the middle of rice paddies.
Distraught mothers of the dead were hysterical, crying and clinging tightly to wooden coffins that were slid into concrete tombs. Some men cursed the old woman who cooked and sold the cassava fritters and balls suspected to be poisoned.
Stephen Rances, the mayor of Mabini town, said the rest of the dead would be buried in the next two to three days. Classes were suspended for the rest of the week to allow the village to mourn the dead, he said.
Senior police officer Ernesto Abueva said they had collected samples of vomit and leftover food and sent them to the health department for an analysis to determine the cause of the poisoning.
He said one of two women who cooked and sold fried cassava was placed under police protection due to threats from angry parents.
"I have nothing to do with that," Victoria Hibiya said. "I also ate some of the cassava balls I sold, but nothing happened to me. Please help me."
Her neighbour and a fellow vendor, Anna Luyong, was herself poisoned after eating the snack.
The school in San Jose has 276 students and about half of them ate fried cassavas sold by the two women during the morning break.
Half an hour later, many children began complaining of stomach aches. Some began vomiting and feeling dizzy, forcing the school to send them home.
Visminda Vallecera said there was complete chaos at a nearby clinic when she brought her younger brother who started vomiting and complained of a stomach ache.
"We were shocked to see the clinic packed with children who had similar complaints of stomach aches," she said. "Everybody was rushing. They were shouting for help and others were crying."
Troy Gepte of the health department's National Epidemiology Centre told reporters in the capital Manila that children may have been poisoned by cyanide in the fried cassava.
"Based on data and information regarding the cassava, cyanogens occur naturally in the root crop," he said. "These are compounds which contain cyanide. The cassava should be boiled or dried first before using it as a food ingredient."
He said more laboratory tests were needed to find out what poisoned the children.