Suicide!

A man believed to be suffering from “nervous breakdown” jumped off the roof of a three-story building along Tupas Street in barangay Sawang Calero yesterday after negotiations for him to come down went for naught.

The man landed on the concrete road right narrowly missing the kibitzers gathered.

He broke his right foot and sustained many more serious injuries.  He is now at the Cebu City Medical Center and is still in critical condition as of press time last night.

Geralinda Cabasan, cousin of the man’s live-in partner, identified him as George de Letran , 33, who is said to be also suffering from hypertension.

She also suspects him to be a user of illegal drugs and must have been high on drugs when he jumped off the roof yesterday.

The police would not however confirm the claim as there is no test yet to check for the presence of illegal drugs in de Letran’s blood.

 Cabasan also said, the de Letran and his live-in partner Reysie Garcia left Cebu for Ozamis City and after ten days, de Letran came back to Cebu and they observed that he was acting differently.

Cabasan told The Freeman that earlier that day, de Letran climbed up the roof of their neighbor’s house and started jumping from one roof to another prompting residents to call for police assistance.

When the police came to arrest de Letran he managed to climb to the roof of a boarding house owned by the Salazar family.

Police surrounded the area and called for help from the Bureau of Fire Protection to assist them with equipment.  Policemen and BFP personnel went up the fire ladder to try to  convince de Letran not to jump off the roof.

De Letran attempted to jump several times and stopped short.

Other policemen, BFP and mediamen even climbed up the neighboring JSV Building to convince him to go down, but a firewall prevented them from getting near de Letran.

De Letran even asked for a bottle of beer, which he quickly consumed.

Supt. Mariano Batiancela, chief of the  San Nicolas Police station who was also the ground commander of the scene, told reporters that they did their best to convince de Letran to come down but  there were no immediate relatives of the man to back them up.

Batiancela admitted that the crowd also became uncontrollable several people gathered around the building.

Adding to the headaches of the police was the taunting of the crowd, who urged de Letran to jump and expressed their dismay each time he stopped short of his attempt to end his life.

According to Medy Garcia, mother of de Letran’s live-in partner, her daughter and de Letran have lived together for less than a year and the couple have always been in all sorts of trouble.

His other relatives also said, that de Letran missed meals for many times, because of his problems. — with Rey Pasaporte