A Vietnamese tourist in Dagupan city last Saturday killed himself by slashing his abdomen after a countrywoman refused to lend him cash for a flight ticket back to Vietnam, Filipino media reported.

The man, identified through his passport as Nguyen Tan Lap, was found in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in front of the West Central Elementary School at 9:30 a.m. on June 8, the Inquirer Global Nation quoted Christopher Abrahano, Dagupan’s police chief, as saying.

According to Abrahano, Lap had met with his fellow Vietnamese Nguyen Thanh Thi, who runs a business in Dagupan, in her rented apartment just across the school minutes before his death and borrowed her money to buy a flight ticket to return to Vietnam.

Abrahano told the newspaper that when Thi said she did not have money, Lap “drew a knife from his pants’ back pocket, slashed his abdomen and then walked away.”

The horrified woman immediately called police who later took Lap to a nearby hospital but doctors failed to save him.

Lap arrived in the country on June 4 and was supposed to return to Vietnam on June 10, said Abrahano, adding that the Vietnamese man had been going in and out of the country in the past few months.

The police chief also revealed that Thi did not really know Lap and why he was in this city, although, he said, they both came from Qui Nhon town, Binh Dinh central city.