Home 
Bacolod City, Philippines — An eight-year-old boy from an impoverished family allegedly killed himself on his birthday by hanging himself in the kitchen of their house in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental, Monday afternoon.
However, Chief Inspector Jefferson Descallar, Cadiz City police chief, said he could not yet conclusively say that the child committed suicide as claimed by the mother, and that the matter was under investigation.
The names of the boy and his parents are withheld because the fatality is a minor and due to the sensitive nature of the case.
Descaller said that “there were some inconsistencies in the mother's statement” and because of this, police would request for an autopsy on the boy who was declared dead upon arrival at the Cadiz City Emergency Clinic.
He also noted that while the mother said the boy used a belt in hanging himself, the marks on the boy's neck “appeared to be from a small rope.”
The police failed to get evidence at the scene because the boy was already taken down when they arrived and there were many people present at the house.
The boy's mother, in an earlier interview, told the Inquirer that she found her son hanging from a belt made of cloth in the kitchen about 5 p.m. Monday.
She said that when her son arrived home from school at past 4 p.m. Monday, she told him to stay home and study, but he refused.
“He wanted to go out with his friends to a bird trap they had set up to see if they had caught anything,” said the mother who is pregnant and has two other children, aged 13 and 12.
She said she hit the boy with his flash cards and directed him to study his lessons then left him crying while she visited a neighbor for 30 minutes.
When she returned, she found the boy hanging from a belt made of cloth in their kitchen, she said. /Inquirer
