MANILA, Philippines—Distraught that his lover refused to leave her work for him and with no money to return home to Samar, a jobless man strangled himself with a shoestring Saturday morning in Quezon City, police said.
Jayson Manguite, 24, was already dead when found by a neighbor inside a rented room on Mabilis Street in Barangay Pinyahan.
Police noted that the body was in a peculiar position: lying at an angle to the floor, hanging by a shoestring around the neck tied to the back of a heavy bamboo chair.
“The victim apparently tied the other end of the shoestring to the backrest of a heavy bamboo chair and hanged himself behind the backrest,” said case investigator SPO1 Johnny Mahilum.
Manguite was discovered around 8 a.m. Saturday inside the room of Lisa Pinca, a relative of Manguite’s live-in partner, Ginaly Mendoza, 22.
Manguite was last seen alive at 7 a.m. just before Mendoza left for work.
Police learned that the couple and their two sons, aged one and four, lived with Pinca.
Mahilum theorized that Manguite might have had a fit of jealousy as the couple had some arguments over Mendoza’s work as an ukay ukay sales lady.
Mendoza told police that her lover had asked her to stop working and just stay at home with him every day.
She refused, however, as she was the family’s breadwinner.
The woman added that Manguite had been asking money from his relatives in Samar so he could go home, but he failed to get any.
Mahilum said Manguite was found dead by a neighbor, Lorna Basiloy, who dropped by Pinca’s house to borrow money. When no one responded to her knocking and calls, she went around and entered through another door.
Inside, she found Manguite’s younger son playing while the older one was crying.
According to Mahilum, Basiloy asked Manguite why he did not answer the door and realized soon enough the man was dead when she noticed he was hanging by the neck from the back of the chair.