The need to address the mental state of youth must be prioritized, Davao City Councilor Mary Joselle Villafuerte urged.
Villafuerte said on Tuesday that the recent incident of a young man who jumped from the fifth floor of a prominent mall in the city is a wakeup call to all parents to focus their attention to their children. Fortunately, the man survived from the fall, however, he incurred huge bone fractures.
“It (the problem) will be tackled in the newly approved mental health ordinance, wherein solutions and approaches will be community based,” she said during the Pulong-Pulong ni Pulong media forum at the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
The ordinance, which was approved in third and final reading last September 2018, will provide programs and services for women and children with mental health and psychological problems. The implementing rules and regulation (IRR) is currently being worked on.
Villafuerte, Sanggunian committee on health chairman, said that the city government will tap the barangays and the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) in addressing the problem.
“We will seek the SK’s help, so that we can go down to the grassroots, and understand the mental health problem of the youth,” she said.
The councilor, who is a medical practitioner, said that the rising cases of teenage suicide is very alarming, next to teenage pregnancy.
The 2017 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study 4 (YAFS 4), conducted by the Commission on Population in Region 11 (POPCOM-11), indicated that suicide attempts among the youth increased from 21.3 percent in 2002, to 36.8 percent in 2013. The level of suicide ideation, or suicidal thoughts, also rose to 13.4 percent in 2013 from 11.2 percent in 2002.
Villafuerte, meanwhile, said that Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio pledged to donate initially P5 milllion for the construction of the mental facility within the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC).
“We might pass a memorandum of agreement with the SPMC for the deed of usufruct. Hopefully they will allot a space within their compound,” she said.
