Expert: Toledo learner’s death possibly a case of copycat suicide

Dr. Obra to netizens: Prevent copycat suicide; don’t post photos or incidents of suicide on social media

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Philippines — A psychiatrist is appealing to netizens not to post any photos or incidents of suicide on social media such as Facebook to prevent copycat suicides.

Dr. Rene Obra, who is a doctor of medicine that specializes in psychiatry, made the appeal after learning about another report of a learner or student in Toledo City, who allegedly committed suicide, because allegedly the student found it difficult to handle the learning modules.

This was the third reported case of learners or students taking their lives allegedly due to problems encountered in answering learning modules. The first two reported cases were learners from Alcoy town in southern Cebu and from Guihulngan City in Negros Oriental.

Read: Learners’ deaths prompt DepEd-7 chief’s appeal

Copycat suicide

Dr. Obra, who is also the chief of the Cebu Center for Mental Health and Services, said the Toledo learner’s death was possibly a case of copycat suicide.

“Gitawag na nato ug copycat suicide. Kanang mga celebrities pananglitan nga mag-suicide, unya ang ilang mga fans, uban sa ilang mga fans, will do the same,” said Obra, who was also a former head of the Center for Behavioral Sciences of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

(We call that copycat suicide. It is what some fans of celebrities, who took their own lives, will also do [commit suicide as what their idol-celebrities did].)

He defined copycat suicide as an emulation of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media.

Amaryllis Villarmia, information officer of the Department of Education in Central Visayas (DepEd-7), confirmed that they recorded another suicide incident in Toledo City this week involving a student.

Villarmia said that they were still investigating if the death of the learner in Toledo City was linked to the alleged difficulty in handling learning modules just like what relatives of the two victims claimed were the cause of the suicides in Alcoy town and Negros Oriental.

“Nagkuha nako og incident report (I have asked for a copy of the incident report),” Villarmia said.

She also said that the learner in Toledo City was performing well in school.

Monitor, Reach out to students

Aside from appealing to netizens not to post photos or incidents of suicides on social media, Dr. Obra also called on parents and teachers to monitor their students and reach out to them.

He said that this was important especially because the students were not used to the learning modalities, such as modular and online learning, that the schools were implementing right now.

“Anything new man gud needs adjustment. Unya dili baya tanan very updated sa kanang gadget. Ang akoa man ganing klase zoom meeting. Unya dili baya ta naanad ana. So naay pressure, stress ug anxiety because sa new system nga gipatuman sa DepEd karon,” Obra said.

(Anything new needs adjustment. Then not all of us are updated in using gadgets. I even hold classes using Zoom meeting. And we are not used to this. So there is pressure, stress, and anxiety because of the new system that DepEd is implementing now.)

Read: Students overwhelmed by tasks under ‘new normal’ way of learning

“We need to exert extra effort to reach out sa mga students who are at high-risk. Makahibawo man ta kinsa ang mga high-risk,” he said.

(We need to exert extra effort to reach out to the students, who are at high risk. We know who these high-risk students are.)

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For those facing huge personal problems or experiencing extreme sadness, they can reach out to and call Tawag Paglaum Centro Bisaya if they need someone to talk to.

Tawag Paglaum Centro Bisaya is a 24/7 call-based hotline for suicide prevention and emotional crisis intervention established in Cebu. Anyone in Central Visayas experiencing a mental disorder relapse or suicidal thoughts may reach the hotline at 0939-936-5433 or 0927-654-1629.

 /dbs