CEBU CITY -- A woman jumped from the old Mactan-Mandaue Bridge Wednesday afternoon, about six hours after a man jumped from a pedestrian overpass here.
Twelve hours later, police were still busy trying to stop another man from jumping from the Marcelo Fernan Bridge.
Of the three, the unidentified woman suffered the most. She was declared in critical condition Wednesday afternoon.
Dr. Oscar Quirante, head of the Mandaue District Hospital, said the woman claimed to work in a restaurant within JY Square in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City.
Wearing the gray pants and yellow-green shirt she had on when she jumped, the woman was transferred from Mandaue to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
Fishermen saved her shortly after her leap, and a team from the Accident Emergency Response Team rushed her to the hospital.
In the other incident, a 53-year-old man who sells newspapers hurt himself by jumping from a pedestrian overpass on Osmeña Blvd., Cebu City, past 9 a.m.
Romeo Golosino, of Barangay Sambag I, fractured his leg and was taken to the Cebu City Medical Center for an operation. He reportedly waited for the road to be free of traffic before leaping. He landed feet first on the concrete road.
Romeo's twin sister, Juliet, in an interview over RGMA radio dySS, said her brother has long been suffering from a blurred vision in one eye.
She said Romeo left the house at 5 a.m. Wednesday to get his newspapers.
Barangay Kamputhaw Councilor Jeffrey Tumulak, also a radio dySS reporter, said he is a friend of Romeo's and learned that the latter owed his dealer more than P300.
This reportedly bothered Romeo.
The dealer, however, said Romeo's unpaid account has been written off.
In the third incident, an unidentified man kept the authorities busy for more than five hours when he camped out on one of the towers of the Marcelo Fernan Bridge.
Police and firemen waited for him 40 feet below.
A Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) operative went up and tried to arrest him, but backed off after the man threatened to drop a 12-inch bolo on him.
Aside from the bolo, the man also carried a sack, which he tied to the waist-high railings on top of the tower.
SFO1 Atilano Berido of the Bureau of Fire Protection, who sat with a sniper on top of the tower across from the man's perch, said the suspect kept on kissing an item, believed to be a rosary.
Lapu-Lapu City Police Chief Anthony Obenza said the man was not a likely jumper.
The police may file against him a complaint for alarm and scandal and concealing a deadly weapon.
At 6:40 p.m., firefighters put up a 20-foot lighting tower with 16 bulbs, each the size of a basin, to illuminate the suspect's position.
Still, the man did not yield.
By 9 p.m., an aerial ladder from Cebu City's fire bureau arrived and was set up, so lawmen could approach the man without having to use the tower's built-in ladder.
Obenza said the surveillance camera operator sighted the man around 4 p.m. and alerted the police.
It was the same operator who alerted the police when the woman earlier jumped from the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge
