Tuesday, May 20, 2008 DepEd worker returns P150T to owner
WHAT will you do if you accidentally stumble upon a wad of money worth P150,000 in a garbage box? Keep it to yourself as a "finder's keeper" reward?
Not so for 37-year-old Noli Betsayda who has been working as a contractual utility employee at the Department of Education (DepEd) central office in Pasig City for the past nine years now.
Finding a bundle of P500 bills worth P150,000 in all in the garbage box of DepEd's Staff Development Division office at 5:30 p.m. on April 30, 2008 did nothing to shake his moral sense of returning it to its rightful owner.
"It never came to my mind. It's as simple as that. The money is not mine. The money should return to the owner," Batsayda said in Filipino where his deeds were only made known.
But life is not that simple or that easy for Noli who has a 71-year-old mother who needs a cataract-eye operation and a brother who is suffering from an acute ulcer ailment.
It is precisely within this context that Noli's honest act of returning the money to Lumen Afable, a DepEd supplier, truly heroic, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said.
In recognition for his good deed, Noli received a Certificate of Commendation and a P5,000 cash gift from Lapus "in recognition of his exemplary honesty worthy of emulation for everyone."
"Whatever good I did, it reflects also to the DepEd," said Betsayda.
Lapus said Betsayda's deeds should be emulated not only by DepEd employees but other government workers in their performance of duty. (AH/Sunnex)
