In 2013, more than 574,000 or 3% of Filipino youth ever tried ending their life. In 2021, the percentage rose to 7.5%, equivalent to almost 1.5 million youth with such experience. Unfortunately, six in 10 of those who ever thought of committing suicide did not reach out to anyone about it.
The main cause of the increasing suicide rate in Philippines is rapidly deteriorating mental health amongst the youth in the Philippines, increasing bullying in the schools and lack of attention provided by the parents to their kids. Nearly one in five Filipinos have decided to end their life or already have ended it. This situation is rapidly increasing all around the globe and is not limited only to Philippines.
Recently a teen named Pauleen Morales has ended her life.
picture of Pauleen Morales, the girl who ended her life.
Pauleen Morales, a girl from Davao city who was a junior high school student, committed the Unthinkable on 10th January 2023.
THE Ateneo de Davao University (Addu) confirmed in a statement on Wednesday, January 11, 2023, an in-campus incident that caused the death of a junior high school student on January 10. According to Addu, the incident took place around 10 a.m. at the Martinez Sports Center of the JHS campus.
“Psychological first aid is being given to students, teachers and staff by the JHS Wellness and Testing Center as necessary. The center is also planning crisis counseling for parents,” Addu said in a statement. The student was admitted and attended to at a hospital as confirmed by the parents to the school on January 10. However, based on the information received by SunStar Davao as of 6 p.m. on January 11, a relative announced in a public post on social media that the student has died at 4 p.m. on the same day.
Our team decided to take matters into our hands, so we started to investigate more about the student’s suicide.
We spoke with many students from Pauleen’s school and with the former teacher of the school, they all said different things about pauleen but they all said one thing in common i.e Pauleen mostly faced hard time in the school, and she was depressed.
Some of the students even said she was being bullied at her school, and hence she fell into the depression.
As our investigation deepened, we came to know one big thing, that is, Ateneo de Davao University tried to hide the incident. “Our school tried their best to hide the incident, but even they are surprised, by looking at how fast her suicide news spread” said one of the students from Ateneo de Davao University.
This raises many questions, why school tried to hide the incident? Was depression really the cause of pauleen’s death? Did Pauleen commit suicide because of the bullying she faced in the school??
However, we failed to gain many other information about pauleen, as the Ateneo de Davao University forced its students to stay quiet about the incident.
In Philippines, many youths are committing suicide because of the bullying and depression. This same problem is arising all over the world.
