LAST Tuesday, a friend of mine left her phone in a taxi on her way home. The phone costs around P10,000, although she got it as a prize in a beauty pageant. She did her best to contact the driver, although she held little hope that she can get her phone back.

Still the unexpected happened. The driver returned her phone, delivered straight to her house just a few hours later.

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In these tough times, the driver could have just sold the phone to someone for a few thousand bucks. He could have just said these to justify his reason, "The phone was left because of my passenger's carelessness, so it's not really my fault" or "That girl looks rich enough to buy another classy phone, so I guess I'm gonna keep this one."

Yet he did not care about the extra cash he could have got had he sold the phone. He just did the right thing, and that is to give back the phone to its owner. To put it simply, he was an honest man.

There are two things we have to learn from this incident. The first one is always keep an eye on your valuables, and the second one is there are still many honest people left in this world.

Even when we were still young, the basic catchphrase "Honesty is the best policy" is already embedded in our mind. Five simple words, with very simple meaning, yet is one of life's most essential proverbs.

The big question is, "Are we living by this virtue?" Well, let me rephrase the question make it more specific. "Do we still practice honesty?"

One would be a hypocrite if he would say he never lied in his lifetime. After all, nobody's perfect. For many, honesty sometimes had to take a back seat in order to benefit one's self. One had to tell "white lies" to avoid hurting other people's feelings. A man had to steal something just to feed his family. A desperate student has to cheat during exams just to pass. The list goes on...

We all know we can't be honest all the time. But the slightest honest deed that we do can mean something great to someone else. That cashier could have got into big trouble by giving you an excess change, but because of your honesty, she did not have to refund it through her salary. That act also taught her to become more careful the next time she gives change to her customers.

As Billy Joel sang, honesty is "such a lonely word," and I guess he was trying to say that only a few honest people left in the world, and that makes it sad.

Nonetheless, I salute that honest taxi driver, along with other righteous individuals who helped others, may it be in a small or big way.

I just wish all of our leaders were just as honest.