“To anyone out there who’s hurting — it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It’s a
sign of strength.”—Barack Obama, former president of the United States
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If there’s one subject matter that’s too hard to write and too painful to learn the basics of it, it’s suicide. You want to assume that it’s only in the movies or in fictional novels but reality bites. Suicides happen in real life.
“Suicide is a major public health problem,” deplores the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO). “Each year more than 700,000 people take their own lives. It is the fourth leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds. Not only is each loss of life tragic in itself, but it also has profound and devastating effects on families and entire communities.”
Suicide takes places as often as every 40 seconds, according to the WHO. “For every suicide, there are many more people who attempt suicide every year,” the United Nations health agency laments.
In Davao City, 53 cases of suicide were recorded in by the City Health Office in 2022, according to the City Information Office. The youngest case was that of a nine-year-old child.
Dr. Luis Antonio Flores, the director of the Mental Wellness Center, stated that the majority of suicide cases in Davao City were associated with mental health issues such as severe depression and anxiety, which had not received prompt intervention.
In an interview with Madayaw Dabaw last year, Dr. Flores was quoted as saying: “Once an individual is depressed, all of their systems are down, their emotions are down, even their mood is unstable. Severe depression can also cause psychosis, once there is psychosis there is that command, the hallucination that whispers on their ears, there is a high tendency that the depression will lead to suicide, self-harm.”
Studies show that most of those who commit suicide are young people. The 2021 Young Adult Fertility Study, the fifth in the series of nationwide surveys on Filipino youth conducted by the University of the Philippines Population Institute, showed the number of young people aged 15-24 who have considered ending their life between 2013 and 2021 more than doubled.
In 2013, records showed more than 574,000 – about 3% of Filipino youth – tried to commit suicide. Eight years later, the figure rose to 1.5 million or 7.5% of the total population of young Filipinos.
Six in 10 of those who ever thought of committing suicide did not reach out to anyone about it, the study showed. The few who did so mostly sought help from close friends and peers (25%), followed by parents/guardians (7%), and other relatives (5%).
“Suicide as a cause of death among young people is increasingly becoming a problem in the Philippines,” wrote Mark Anthony Mujer Quintos in his study of predictors of suicide ideation among the Filipino youth.
Suicide is the ninth leading cause of death among those aged 20-24 since 2003 “and responsible for approximately one out of every three deaths among Filipinos aged 10-24,” Quintos said in his study which was published in Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies.
The Philippines has one of the world’s lowest suicide rates. The 2000 Philippine Health Statistics from the Department of Health (DOH) showed only 1.8 per 100,000 people to have inflicted harm on themselves. In comparison, European countries had the highest figures which ranged from 30 to 42 per 100,000 people.
There may be more Filipinos, who commit suicide than what is being recorded. “Certainly, the actual rate in the Philippines is probably higher, with many doctors agreeing not to report deaths as suicides because of the stigma. But even if we could get the true figure, it would probably still be relatively low,” Dr. Michael Tan wrote in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column.
While suicide rates are low in the country, there is an increase of suicide incidence among adolescents and young adults. Citing a report from the National Poison Management and Control Center of the Philippine General Hospital, Senator Joel Villanueva pointed out during a Senate hearing some years back that 46% of the total suicide cases recorded since 2010 were from the young people.
“Although some attempted or completed suicides come as a shock even to family and friends, clear warnings are given in most cases,” reminds The Merck Manual of Medical Information. “Any suicide threat or suicide attempt is a plea for help and must be taken seriously. If the threat or attempt is ignored, a life may be lost.”
For health purposes, the Merck manual calls it as “suicidal behavior.” It explains: “Suicidal behavior is an all-too-common health problem. Although most suicidal behavior does not result in death, 10% of people who try to kill themselves using a potentially fatal means do die from their actions.”
According to the Merck manual, suicidal behavior is an unmistakable signal that a person has feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Among those with high-risk factors for suicide are males, having painful or disabling illness, living alone, having debt or living in poverty, under bereavement, experiencing humiliation or disgrace, and depressed.
Other high-risk factors: persistence of sadness even when other symptoms of depression are getting better, history of drug or alcohol abuse, history of prior suicide attempts, family history of suicide, family violence (including physical or sexual abuse), suicidal preoccupation and talk, and well-defined plans for suicide.
“Each death by suicide is a tragedy, and more must be done to strengthen suicide prevention,” said Dr. Dévora Kestel, WHO Director of Mental Health and Substance Use, adding that WHO has released important guidance on two areas which are critical to suicide prevention efforts: decriminalization of suicide and suicide attempts and responsible reporting of suicide by the media.
