ABOUT 30 Cebu City medical and police personnel will assist foreign forensic experts in examining the remains of the MV Princess of the Stars passengers at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes next week.Andreas Kleiser and Torkjel Rygnestad of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) trained these police and medical personnel in the use of the DNA kits at the Police Regional Office-7 yesterday. The 3,000 DNA kits are scheduled to be delivered next week. Kleiser said Cebu medical personnel will conduct sampling while the 30 policemen will conduct antemortem interview with the relatives. The DNA sampling which consists of taking blood samples from the relatives will be painless, Kleiser said. Relatives would then be told to give personal information on the victims for profile purposes.
In case the victim has no parent or sibling, Kleiser said samples from blood-relatives and children will be collected. Interpol agents will also take samples from relatives living abroad. Of the 173 total cadavers that arrived in Cebu City, only six were properly identified and released to their families, according to the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes in Cebu City. Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes funeral counselor Redj Antido said only six bodies were released until yesterday. Among those identified were Ruel Lariba from Catagbacan, Loon, Bohol; Leonardo Acusar of Capitol Drive Butuan City; Esmeralda Liquigan of T. Padilla Cebu City; Archel Ilustrisimo of Daanbantayan Cebu; Felipe Omandac of Magpet, North Cotabato and Robert Go of Paranaque. National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 medico legal officer Dr. Rene Cam said the relatives based in Cebu would be fetched in buses provided by the Cebu provincial government. Cam said procurement of blood samples is fast, but results would be processed in Sarajevo and may take weeks. With a report from Jhunnex Napallacan | 
