Co-employees and friends of Jorge Gino Bernados, a maintenance worker at Saipan World Resort who died three weeks ago, were stunned to see during a public viewing at San Jose Church that the body in the casket was that of a different man.<\/p>\n
They later learned that Bernados\u2019 body had already been cremated and sent to Hawaii.<\/p>\n
When Fr. Charlie Borja finished the Mass for 55-year-old Bernados on the ninth day of rosary last March 14, he gave instructions to open the closed casket for viewing.<\/p>\n
Reymundo dela Cruz, 64, a maintenance worker at Saipan World Resort, immediately noticed that the body was that of a different person.<\/p>\n
In an interview Monday, Dela Cruz said that, upon the opening of the casket, he and his other workers concluded it was not Bernados\u2019.<\/p>\n
One thing that tipped him off was that the body had long hair; he said Bernados was a skinhead.<\/p>\n
He said the priest then asked them to call Borja Funeral Parlor, which reclaimed the body.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said that Bernados had a tattoo mark \u201cPalau boy\u201d on the left shoulder, but the body that was brought to San Jose Church had none.<\/p>\n
He said Bernados\u2019 body was supposed to be flown to the Philippines the next day, March 15. He said they later learned that their co-worker\u2019s body was cremated at Borja Funeral Parlor and subsequently sent to a family in Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Apparently, the family of the man who was mistaken as Bernados asked for cremation and for the ashes to be taken to Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Bernados had a brother on Saipan. The brother and co-workers and friends had a daily rosary at San Jose Church. The body was only sent to the church on the last day of the rosary since police were investigating the death.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune learned that Bernados was still able to report for work at Saipan World Resort last Feb. 26, but he did not show up for work the following day.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said he knocked on the door of Bernados\u2019 unit at their barracks last Feb. 28 at 5:30pm to check on him, but there was no response.<\/p>\n
Another co-worker who stays in the adjacent room came out and Dela Cruz and the co-worker checked the room and noticed that it was unlocked. They then smelled a foul odor and saw Bernados lying lifeless on the bed. That\u2019s when they called 911.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz and his co-workers recalled that last Feb. 25, a day before Bernados last reported for work, Bernados was drunk and fell on the stairs in the barracks.<\/p>\n
Saturnino \u201cAtoy\u201d Banting, supervisor at the Saipan World Resort maintenance department, said he heard that, based on the autopsy, no foul play was found and that Bernados had died from a stroke.<\/p>\n
Banting confirmed that Bernados had a \u201cPalau boy\u201d tattoo on his left shoulder as he and Bernados used to work in Palau.<\/p>\n
Bernados used to be the driver of the late Palau governor Roman Tmetuchl.<\/p>\n
Bernados\u2019 wife and four children are in Cabanautan, Nueva Ecija in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Co-workers said Bernados, who loved to sing and was very friendly, first went home to the Philippines in 2017 after being away for 17 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Co-employees and friends of Jorge Gino Bernados, a maintenance worker at Saipan World Resort who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}