Do you want to get the attention of top legislators in the Philippines? By returning a big amount of money, you might even end up posing in a photo opportunity with them.
This is what Lark Micheal Colegado, an overseas Filipino worker based in Saudi Arabia, is bound to experience after he returned around 1.2 million Saudi Riyals (US$320,000) to its rightful owner last October. Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Gabriela Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan, members of the House committee on overseas workers affairs, endorsed the House Resolution 1500 and the House of Representatives approved the formal recognition of this outstanding Filipino worker.
The three made a visit to Saudi Arabia and held a dialogue with Filipino community leaders, met Colegado and conveyed to him the members of Philippine Congress are proud of him and that he demonstrated good attributes of Filipinos.
Colegado, a 34-year-old native of Tacloban City, works as an ATM maintenance technician in Jeddah. He was fixing an offline ATM in the northern city of Tabuk on Oct 6 when he found a box contain the money. He immediately notified his superiors who later informed officials who owned the machine.
“I’m very happy. I am proud of myself that in spite of it being such a huge amount, I didn’t feel like taking money which does not belong to me,” Colegado said.
“What Colegado did is very timely. At this point in time when we have lots of Filipinos facing financial problems in this country, here comes a man returning a very big amount of money he found with no regret,” said Filcom leader Jauhari Usman.
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