Is it possible for a person to shoot himself twice?

"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."
--Chuck Palahniuk

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- The answer is yes.
There have been suicide cases where the persons shot themselves two times or even more before they were killed.
This happened when the first shot wasn't fatal and the person intending to kill himself got another chance to pull the trigger.
If the first shot isn't fatal, there may be cases where the person can still pull the trigger as he twitches due to muscle spasms caused by the disruption of communication between neurons.
It depends heavily on the angle of the barrel to the body or head and the caliber of the gun, which can be best explained by Iloilo police investigators who are the experts on this matter.
Arnel Rebeta, a DPWH district engineer in Antique in the Philippines, who was recently found dead inside his boarding house at Bankers’ Village subdivision, Barangay Dungon B, Jaro district with gunshot wounds on the chest and on the nape, could have killed himself, according to the initial investigation of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO)’s Special Investigation Task Force (SITF) headed by Superintendent Rogen Morales who faced reporters on July 18.

UNIQUE

An Australian who committed suicide on parkland in Canberra in February 1995 had the most unique method in killing himself.
He shot himself in the chest using a pump action shotgun. Without hitting a single rib, the load passed through his chest, and went out the other side.
Sensing he was alive, he pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head while walking for 15 meters.
He was still alive, thus he reloaded the shotgun, leaned it against his throat, and pulled the trigger, hittinf the throat and part of his jaw.
He survived anew.
He reloaded a final time and walked 200 meters to a hill. He sat down on the slope, held the gun against his chest with his hands and operated the trigger with his toes.
This time, the shot entered the thoracic cavity and punctured his heart. He died, finally.

-o0o-

Is there really a hell, heaven and purgatory litterally?
Religion tells us they exist.
Many independent thinkers and philosophers believe they don't exist literally.
One of them is lawyer-philosopher Ernie J. Dayot of Dingle, Iloilo in the Philippines, who exhorted this writer to read more about Italian poet Dante Alighiere or simply called "Dante."
In the book, Who's Who In The Middle Ages by Dr. John Fines I acquired from Barnes and Noble in Manhattan for $7.98, Dante was described as "a voracious reader of vernacular as well as classical literature, and he claimed to know the Aeneid by heart. He also studied painting and music."
Fines describes Dante further: "By 1287, he was at Bologna--possibly at the university, but his whole heart was set on poetry, and at this young age he dared to submit a sonnet for criticism to the leading poet of the age, Guido Cavalcanti. At the same time he led a rich social life, and (as was normal for young nobles of the time) twice appearing on the field of battle."

MAJOR WORK

Born in Florence in 1265, Dante's first major work was the Vita Nuova, a striking piece of self-psychologizing, set in the form of a critical exposition of his sonnets.
"These were concerned with his strange relationship with Beatrice, with whom he fell in love at the age of nine (she was only eigth). With all the devotion of Courtly Love that demanded purification through a kind of self-denial and worship usually accorded to the Divine, he pursued Beatrice with adoring glances, being rewarded with one famous salutation on the bridge," narrates Fines.
Dante's devotion, however, was obviously real, Fines adds, "for when she died in 1290 he changed his mode of life considerably in reaction."
Dante married and had children, and indulged in a certain amount of dissipation and free-thinking, which he much regretted in later years, according to Fines.
Dayot says religion copied the theory of hell, heaven and purgatory in Dante's long narrative poem, Divine Comedy.
The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas (Italian plural cantiche) – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) – each consisting of 33 canots (Italian plural canti).
An initial canor, serving as an introduction to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first cantica, brings the total number of cantos to 100.
It is generally accepted, however, that the first two cantos serve as a unitary prologue to the entire epic, and that the opening two cantos of each cantica serve as prologues to each of the three canticas.

Who's telling a lie in the Panay-Guimaras-Negros bridge project?

"It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it."
 --Judi Dench

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- It's a white lie.
I have serious misgivings on reports that Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark Villar had "confirmed" to Mayor Eugene Reyes of Buenavista, Guimaras that the construction of the much-ballyhooed Panay-Guimaras-Negros or Western Visayas bridge "will start under the Duterte administration."
If Villar did say this, then he is phony. 
Politician Villar only probably wanted to take fellow politician Reyes for a ride. 

Without a latest feasibility study, how can a project begin?
Can a cart move ahead of the horse?
To add confusion, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA-6) Regional Director Ro-Ann Bacal reportedly said that the construction of the inter-island bridge "is among the priority projects of the DPWH."
The proposed Panay-Guimaras-Negros bridge is not among the priority projects of the DPWH this year, madame director.
Therefore, there can be no construction in the radar this year and in 2018.
It's actually back to dreamland.

BUDGET

When Villar lobbied for DPWH's P458.61-billion budget for 2017 before the House Committee on Appropriations in August 2016, the Western Visayas bridge was not among those listed in the country's "most ambitious infrastructure program" Villar enumerated that would benefit from the expanded budget (the amount is P61 billion higher than last year's P397.108 budget.).
DPWH's priority projects are the following: Taal Lake Circumferential Road, San Nicolas-Sta Teresita, Alitagtag, Batangas; Gurel-Bukod-Kabayan-Buguias Road (leading to Mt Pulag, Bulalacao Lakes, Kabayan Mummies), Bokod, Kabayan and Buguias, Benguet; Cagaray Circumferential Road, Bacacay, Albay leading to Misibis Resort and white beaches in Albay; Tatay-El Nido Road, Palawan; Jct (Tagbilaran East Road, TER) Guindulman-Anda-Badiang Cogtong -Road leading to beaches and resorts, Anda, Bohol; Borongan, Llorente Closed Canopy Forest Area, Maydolong, Eastern Samar; and Island Garden City of Samal Circumferential Road, Davao del Norte.
NAIA Expressway; Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway; NLEX Harbor Link, Segment 10; Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3; Plaridel By-Pass Road, Phase II; NLEX Harbor Link, Segment 8.2; Central Luzon Link Expressway - PHase I (Tarlac-Cabanatuan); Cavite-Laguna Expressway; SLEX TR4, Sto Tomas-Lucena; C6 - Phase I, Southeast Metro Manila Expressway; and NLEX-SLEX Connector Road.
Also, Candon City By-Pass Road, Ilocos Sur; Laoag City By-Pass Road, Ilocos Norte; Plaridel By-Pass Road, Phase II; Carcar By-Pass Road, Carcar City, Cebu; Palo West By-Pass Road, Palo, Leyte; Tacloban City By-Pass Road, Leyte; Cotabato City East Diversion Road; Alae By-Pass Road; and Davao City By-Pass Construction Project, Mindanao.

There's no Panay-Guimaras-Negros bridge project on the list, which would have eaten up an estimated 30 percent of the DPWH national budget.

Villar did mention, however, that his department was "studying the feasibility of proposed P21.67 billion Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridge Project."

LOBBY

The inter-island bridge project, conceptualized way back during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos, doesn't have a detailed budget yet despite the spirited lobbying of the Regional Development Council (RDC) and almost all congressmen and women.
There's also a misconception that China, which maintains a shaky relationship with the Philippines owing to its repeated intrusion in the Panatag Shoal, will fund the project that could cost up to an estimated P65 billion.
What Chinese Vice Minister Fu Ziying of the Ministry of Commerce and Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Carlos Dominguez had agreed, and which was covered by a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in their March 18, 2017 meeting, was for the Chinese government to help fund the feasibility studies of at least two of the nine Philippine projects China had pledged to support.
A feasibility study does not commence the construction of any project.
Last year during the Aquino administration, the government had also sought the help of South Korea to fund the project's feasibility study, as revealed by Senator Franklin Drilon, to no avail.

CAUTION

Experts, meanwhile, have cautioned the Philippine government of the scale of risks in the provisions of megaprojects like the 23.19-kilometer-long Western Visayas bridge.
Nicanor R. Roxas, Jr., who drafted the Cost Overruns and the Proposed Panay-Guimaras-Negros Inter-Island Bridge Project, confirmed that the Western Visayas bridge project has been studied by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and DPWH with varying projected costs and designs. 
The costs reportedly range from P53 billion in 1999, P28.5 billion in 2010, and P54 billion in 2011.
"This just reflects the uncertainties in cost estimation for this kind of project. Different designs and alignments have different associated costs, but even if everything has been finalized, there is still no guarantee that costs will not change. Unforeseen problems will be encountered along the way, and together with these problems are unpredicted cost adjustments that pile up resulting in large cost overruns," Roxas warned. 

EXPERIENCE

He added: "The Philippines does not have any experience in constructing a project of such magnitude. Thus, we have no formula for success, just like most of the other failed projects completed in the past."
Roxas explained that "it is easier to enumerate projects that failed than projects which have succeeded. Therefore, it does not look promising and all the more the need to look into the experience of others in megaproject construction. It is clear that the effects of megaproject provision are extensive. If the megaproject construction fails, which is highly probable, other sectors are getting adversely affected."
Roxas, a master of engineering specializing in Transportation Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and member of the Transportation Science Society of the Philippines (TSSP) and the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE), further warned that "it does not look promising and all the more the need to look into the experience of others in megaproject construction."