Prominent Davao lawyer kills self

DAVAO CITY — A prominent lawyer and human rights advocate here stabbed himself to death in the chest last Thursday afternoon due to what he said in his suicide note was the depression he had had since June last year.

Lawyer Florante Garcia, who was elected provincial board member of Davao del Norte in 1995, was found inside his office profusely bleeding with a knife wound in the left portion of the chest. He was rushed to the Davao Doctors Hospital where he later died.

Garcia, in his early 40s, was said to have gone to the courts Thursday morning and upon returning at noon, locked himself inside the office he shared with three other lawyers.

His secretary was alarmed when he did not come out at 1:30 p.m. as he regularly did.

Garcia left a suicide note addressed to his wife, Celia, saying he could no longer bear the depression he had suffered since June last year. He left six children.

Garcia, in his note, reportedly asked Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to extend help to his wife for his burial and that he be buried in Compostela Valley.

Ed Batacan, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ Davao City chapter, said Garcia’s death was a great loss to the IBP, describing him as a good lawyer and human rights advocate.

Garcia was a student leader during his high school and college days, and even while he was taking up law at the University of Mindanao and Ateneo de Davao.

He was one of the prime movers of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Southern Mindanao.

He ran twice for Congress in 1992 and 1998 but lost. — Edith Regalado