What would you do if you discovered an abandoned bag with a million pesos in it?
A waiter at a restaurant in a mall found one on Wednesday and decided to look for the owner and give the money back.
Alexander "Stitch" Latag found the money in a blue SM plastic bag on a seat outside Cyma restaurant in Greenbelt 2 where he works. At first, Stitch thought that the bag was just trash but checked the contents first before throwing it out.
"I looked at it to check whether it was trash or a bomb," Latag said with a laugh. Latag said he got nervous when he saw bundles of P1000 bills inside the bag. When he showed it to a colleague, a lot of things played on their minds, he said. They thought it might be ransom money or for illegal purposes.
Latag said he saw the woman who left the bag outside Cyma. He waited one-and-a-half hours for her to come back and when she didn't, Stitch gave the bag to their manager, Jay Espinosa.
P100,000 reward
The money belonged to Rose Rafael, chair of recruitment agency Skyworld Business Merger Inc. The P1 million was supposedly the payment from recruits who had to pay P200,000 each as placement fee to the company, Espinosa said.
Espinosa called his boss who picked the money up and put it in the bank. At around 11pm, Rafael came back asking if they saw the plastic bag.
"I interviewed her just to check if it was hers. Since her answers matched the details, I told her we have it," Espinosa said.
Rafael claimed the money on Thursday and surprised Stitch with P100,000 as reward for his honesty.
"I did not expect that she would do that. I'm so happy for the reward but it’s okay if she just thanks me because I did a good thing," Latag said.
Off to Singapore
Latag said it was a big relief when Rafael finally claimed the money. He said he was so nervous because that was the only time he saw such a huge amount of money. It never crossed his mind to keep the money to himself. He wasn't even able to sleep on Wednesday night because he kept thinking about the owner.
"For me, its big money but I didn’t even think of getting it because it's big karma if I'll do that... I worried about the owner who may have had heart attack looking for the lost money," Latag said.
Latag said he plans to use the money for his air fare to Singapore where he has a job waiting for him. He worked there for one year in 2005 as hotel staff. His former employer in Singapore recently called and offered him a job. Latag said he really wanted to go back but lacked the money for travel fare.
"Perhaps this is the sign, that’s why I was given a reward," Latag said.
According to Espinosa, this is not the first time that this has happened to Cyma. Jewelry, a bag of high-tech gadgets, and P100,000 are among those found and returned by their staff in different branches of Cyma.
"We're so proud of our staff," Espinosa said.