Girl's suicide linked to Philippines poverty

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

MANILA (AFP) — A girl aged 11 hanged herself in a Philippines shanty after leaving a letter and diary depicting a life in rampant poverty, newspapers here reported Thursday.

The case put a human face to poverty blighting the nation, where nearly 14 percent of the 87 million population live on less than a dollar a day even as the government says the economy is on a roll.

"I suspect she did it because of our situation," the girl's father, Isabelo Amper, was quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer as saying.

In a letter found under her pillow after Mariannet Amper's death, she said she only wished for a bicycle, bag, new shoes and jobs for her parents so she could finish primary school.

"I just want to finish studying and to buy a bicycle," she wrote in...