A Filipino who had lost his job in a bank here committed suicide inside the bathroom of his flat, friends and officials of the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah said on Tuesday. Frederick Taclay, 44, from Rizal province in the Philippines, hanged himself in the bathroom over some financial problems, friends said. His body was discovered by his flatmates hanging on Friday morning. He could have been dead for hours before his body was discovered, his flatmates said. A flatmate, Joe Felix, said he found the door locked when he wanted to use the bathroom at about 6 A.M. on Friday. He waited for a while but when it took so long he told his other companions in the house that something might be wrong. “We decided to call the haris (building caretaker) to help open the door, but later we decided to open it in the presence of the police authorities,” he said. “When we had opened the door, we found the body hanging against the wall.” He said the body was hanging from a rope hooked to what was supposed to be a water heater. Police investigators found an email of Taclay addressed to Vice President Noli De Castro, Senator Manny Villar and boxing icon Manny Pacquiao seeking financial assistance to pay his accumulated bank loan and credit cards amounting to $15,000, friends said. They said that Taclay could have taken a loan from the bank where he had worked to start a business but the business did not prosper. His depression was allegedly aggravated when he resigned from the bank to take another job which he also eventually lost because his iqama could not be transferred. Abdulfatah Debarosah, Taclay's colleague at work, said Taclay had once confided his problems to him and that he had advised him not to worry much because everything would come out fine and to seek his family's assistance until he could find another job. Dr. Romualdo Exmundo, officer at the Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration at the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah, said they were already informed about Taclay's death. He said the consulate and OWWA were just waiting for the result of the police investigation into the case so they could work on the necessary documents for repatriation, if Taclay was not a Muslim. By tradition a Muslim has to be buried 24 hours after his death, he said. Exmundo said Taclay's family has already been informed of his death. “He was a brother here who has been coordinating with us,” he said. Joey Garcia, who lives in the same flat as Taclay, said Taclay was a good man ready to help other people who needed assistance. Lately, he said, Taclay became quiet and lonely and did not talk so much. Friends said Taclay was an active member of a community organization and that they didn't have any hint he would commit suicide.
