Suicide girl laid to rest; GMA-7 fulfills her wishes

By AL JACINTO ZAMBOANGA CITY - A poor girl who was driven to commit suicide because of extreme poverty and hopelessness was buried Saturday in Davao City. Mariannet Amper, 12, hanged herself November 2 inside their house in the village of Maa. Hundreds of people, many of them moved by the girl's tragic end, came to pay their last respects. They cried as the girl's white coffin was buried. GMA Network also aired a special on Saturday as a tribute to the girl, who had written a letter asking the TV program "Wish Ko Lang" (I Just Wish) for a pair of school shoes and bicycle for her younger brother and goats for her unemployed parents - her father, Isabelo, a former construction worker and mother, Magdalena. The letter was written two years ago and was never mailed for lack of money to buy a postage stamp. GMA Network has given the family a mini-van, a dozen goats and a bicycle just as what the girl wished for. "All her classmates are present and they cried also. We cried, but could do nothing else now," the girl's father said. Alphonse Rivera, head of the child rights organization Salinlahi Alliance for Children's Concerns, said the effects of poverty have been evident even during the time of previous administration, but had allegedly worsened under the Arroyo administration. "We have already seen and heard news of adults committing suicide in desperation borne out of poverty by jumping from billboards or hanging themselves," Rivera said. He said that since 2005 surveys showed rising statistics on the incidence of hunger among Filipinos “and yet no decisive move to alleviate economic conditions has been done by the government." President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo this week has ordered the released of P1 billion to further accelerate the government's hunger-mitigation and anti-poverty program. But Rivera said funding was "too little, too late." "Economic policies must be reviewed to enable the people to live a decent life. Increase wages, nationalize the oil industry, genuine land reform for the farmers – these are what the people are calling for but has remained unheeded," he said. Rivera also cited a recent study by the International Food Policy Research Institute that 11 million Filipinos live on less than $1 (P42) a day experienced hunger. "Many children have stopped schooling and are forced to work to help in the family's income. Yet after all their efforts, at the end of the day, they still go to bed hungry," he said. - GMANews.TV