By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent .
A TROUBLED trisikad driver, worried because he was accused of raping a child, caused a major traffic jam on the Maharlika Bridge and CM Recto when he climbed a billboard with a plan to leap off to his death onto the road around noon time yesterday.
The drama that lasted for over an hour ended when rescuers succeeded in talking 40-year-old Rogelio “Dodong” Abismo into climbing down the billboard attached to the pedestrian overpass across CM Recto Ave. near Gaisano City.
Abismo, a resident of Consolacion, was back on the ground by 12 noon.
Insp. Sam Laurence Velarde, chief of the Special Rescue Unit of Bureau of Fire Protection here, said Abismo’s plan was to kill himself by jumping off onto the busy road in broad daylight.
Rescue teams from the capitol and the city rushed to the area.
Velarde said it took time before they could convince Abismo to go down because he was afraid of the police.
Abismo told reporters later that he wanted to commit suicide because his neighbors accused him of raping a nine-year-old girl.
“Dili man man tino-od, wala man ko manglugos,” Velarde quoted Abismo as telling him.
Rescuers subsequently handed Abismo over to the Macabalan police. The would-be suicide agreed to be brought to the Macabalan police station for investigation on condition he would not be taken there by a police car.
Abismo yielded and was brought to the police station by rescuers aboard a city hall ambulance. Later, police handed him over to the City Social Welfare and Development Office for proper care.
Abismo’s brother Hitler said his brother hasn’t slept for four days because he was bothered by accusations that he sexually abused a child.
For four days, all he did was to walk around and get drunk, Hitler said. He said Rogelio also stopped driving his trisikad.
Rogelio was brought to the JR Borja Memorial General Hospital on Thursday night because he has become so restless and his family wanted him to calm down and get some sleep.
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