Belgian student jumps to death off building

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — An 18-year-old Belgian male student allegedly jumped to his death from a building of the La Consolacion College (LCC) in this city Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., police said.

The victim, Matthew Geurts, who studied in LCC as a foreign exchange student, was taking up Fine Arts major in Digital Media, and was a scholar of the American Field Service (AFS), Bacolod Police Station 1 commander, Chief   Insp. Danilo Francisco, said.

Francisco said a student and an employee of the school told the police that they saw Geurts on the rooftop of the Mother Ignacia Consuelo Barcelo Activity Center and later saw him falling into the quadrangle.

A letter, which the police believed to be a suicide note was recovered from Geurts, however, there was no one to interpret its content as of press time as it was written in French, said Francisco.

Geurts, a temporary resident of Brgy. Bata of this city, was rushed to the Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital but was declared dead-on-arrival.

Geurts had been in Bacolod for six months and was one of the 11 foreign nationals—French, Germans, Thais, Japanese,  Argentinian and Panamanian—who were sent to Bacolod as part of the AFS’ inter-cultural program. (FREEMAN)