Measures Eyed to Curb Suicide in Mactan Bridges

The Mactan Cebu Bridge Management Board will put more closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the two bridges that connect this city to Mactan Island and Mandaue City in mainland Cebu to prevent incidents of suicide.

Member of the board, City Mayor Junard 'Ahong' Chan, said Monday that they had discussed in their recent meeting the measures that they would implement to prevent suicide attempts in the old Mactan-Mandaue Bridge and Marcelo Fernan Bridge.

Chan said the board, headed by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, resolved to purchase more CCTV cameras to be installed in different parts of the two bridges to monitor people who plan to end their lives by jumping off.

"Strictly, those CCTVs will monitor the activities in the bridge. CCTV cameras are focused on monitoring if there will somebody nga molayat sa (who would jump off the) bridge," he said in a radio interview.

The board also plans to station personnel in the middle of the two bridges, as a deterrent to would-be jumpers.

Chan’s statement came after the Mandaue City Police fished out the body of a 16-year-old athlete and scion of a well-known family in Cebu who was found floating in the waters off a shipyard near the village of Opao in Mandaue at about 11 AM on Sunday, August 18.

Col. Jonathan Abella, chief of the Mandaue police station, told a local radio station that the boy who was found in the shipyard in Opao was the same boy who went to the Marcelo Fernan Bridge and jumped off at about 2 AM on Sunday, as caught by CCTVs from nearby establishments.

He had the same profile and outfit, Abella said.

Chan urged parents to monitor their children to prevent another suicide in the bridges connecting Mactan and Mandaue.