Two men, tired of living in poverty committed suicide in Caloocan City this week.
Marcial Mallo, 65, even “smiled” before jumping off a footbridge near Manila Central University Hospital on Monday morning.
Mallo and his three children had been jobless for years, said his daughter-in-law Joy Mallo. Their family shared a shanty in a slum in Barangay Potrero, Malabon. His family believes Maalo thought that by killing himself, he was ending his family’s year-long suffering from the lack of money needed to treat his enlarged heart and tuberculosis.
Mallo’s medicine cost P95 daily. The last time his family bought him medicine, their electricity supply was cut. “He felt sad that we had to use the money intended for our electricity bill,” Joy said.
Mallo was noticeably quiet days before he committed suicide. “But we never thought he was capable of doing such a thing,” she said.
At 5:30 a.m. on Monday, he woke up and asked his favorite grandson to accompany him. “Let’s buy my medicine,” Joy quoted Mallo telling John Paul Naria, 12. Mallo’s relatives were shocked because they knew he did not have a single penny. The boy, being his favorite, decided to go with him anyway.
Joy, recounting what John Paul told her, said when they reached the footbridge at 6:22 a.m., Mallo told him to leave and buy a newspaper. The boy refused to leave until Mallo threatened to hit him.
Right after he got off the bridge, John Paul heard a loud thump on the road. When he turned to look, he saw Mallo lying face down.
A father and his young son later told policemen that Mallo “smiled” at them before jumping off the rails. He was rushed to MCU Hospital but died two hours after.
Mallo’s death came hours after a former security guard turned drug addict hanged himself inside a shanty in Bagong Barrio.
“It’s difficult when you have nothing to eat,” wrote Mark Anthony Delemos in his suicide note. Based on the letter, Delemos had been mulling killing himself since May 26.
He was also tired of dealing with a broken family, he said.
According to Lorena Tena, a kumare to the couple, Delemos was very jealous of his wife’s boss. “But she was not having an affair and the cause of his jealousy was unfounded,” Tena said.
In the note, Delemos warned his wife Jennylyn Hizon that her boss was only after her body. Hizon, who works for a company selling rags, is the family breadwinner. She had been working overtime to support their two children since Delemos lost his job four years ago.
“He resigned out of laziness and my daughter could not take it,” said Jennylyn’s father Ricardo. “She does not understand how Mac-mac (Delemos’s nickname) had the money to buy shabu yet he couldn’t even feed their family,” he said.
Delemos was with his son Jenmark before he hanged himself. He drank four bottles of beer, took shabu, and told the boy how much he loved their family.
“Then he sent the boy out of the house and hanged himself,” Ricardo said.
According to the Caloocan City government’s 2010 annual report posted on its website, the city earned P1.08 billion pesos that year. “This is 579,616,696 million pesos more than the revenue collected in 2006 representing an increase of 86.74 percent.The city’s income grew at an average of 78 percent from 2006 to 2010,” it said.
It said the increased income allowed the local government to “embark on programs and projects that redound to the greater benefits of its constituents.”
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Photo: Ramon F Velasquez
