Medicine freshman shoots himself dead in Inayawan

For the second time in three days, another student of a university in Cebu City has committed suicide, this time it was a freshman taking up medicine who shot himself to death at the terrace of his house in VIP Village, barangay Inayawan, early morning yesterday.

Shiek Cogniat, 25, was found by his aunt sprawled and bloodied on the terrace floor at around 5:30 a.m. where he was last seen alive, drinking alone about four hours earlier.

Cogniat had a single gunshot wound in his right temple, the bullet exited out of his left temple. His sister Yasmin took him to a private hospital but he was declared dead on arrival.

Homicide investigator SPO3 Alex Dacua recovered from the scene a .38 cal. revolver with five live bullets and an empty shell as well as a half-empty bottle of brandy. Nobody from the victim's relatives and neighbors reported hearing the gunshot, investigators noted.

A cousin of the victim, who is a nursing student, told the police that Cogniat was reportedly depressed because his sweetheart, with whom he had a two-year-old son, was already with another man, PO3 Edario Manatad recounted the cousin's story.

"Mahadlok na siya tingali nga di na siya ilhon sa bata, pero wala ta kabalo kung mao gyud nay hinungdan sa iyang paghikog, pero mao daw na ang iyang problema," Manatad quoted Cogniat's cousin as saying.

Last Thursday night a nursing student of the same school, 19-year-old Christine Bernardo, hanged herself from a wooden beam of their house in barangay Pooc, Talisay City.

Talisay Police Supt. Romeo Perigo earlier told reporters that he will request the Bernardo's relatives to let her body be autopsied to determine the real cause of her death.

The victim reportedly left behind a hand-written suicide note, but Perigo said they have not read it because the Scene of the Crime Operation unit has it.

Perigo also said he would order investigators to look into a report that Alex Magalona, a clinical instructor from the school, went to the Homicide Section to complain about what he considered a threat.

Magalona reportedly told the police about an unidentified woman who went to the school's faculty room and started blaming him for the death of Bernardo.

"Ang angle nato diha suicide pa gyud, pero naa sad tay mga pagduda kay dili pa man nato na ma-prove unless wala pay laboratory result," Perigo said. - Edwin Ian Melecio/RAE