‘If it isn’t yours, return it’

MANILA, Philippines - In a metropolis of over 10 million people, one pizza delivery man has stood out for his breeding.

Yellow Cab pizza rider Jhon Jhon Santos said he was taught by his parents early on that what wasn’t rightfully theirs shouldn’t be coveted: “Kung hindi sa inyo, isauli ninyo (If it isn’t yours, return it.)”

So when he found two US passports, a set of keys, four credit and ATM cards and a notebook while emptying the trash at the Yellow Cab Pizza branch at Mezza, Sta. Mesa past midnight one Saturday, he lost no time in trying to locate their rightful owners.

Though tired from his duties at the end of a busy evening, Santos made an effort to find out who owned the lost items even if it meant going through the trash. But more than just returning what wasn’t rightfully his, it was Santos’ desire to spare the owners anxiety and give them peace of mind that spoke highly of him.

“Sabi ko, dapat maisauli ito, nakakaawa naman, mag-ina pa. Baka hinahanap na ‘yung passport (I thought to myself, I have to return these, I pity the mother and child who lost them. They must be looking for their passports now),” Santos, a former jeepney driver and a single father of three girls, said when asked to recount the events of that night. He was also worried because there was a set of keys in the pile and he was concerned that if those were house keys, the owners of the passports wouldn’t have a roof over their heads that night.

Like a detective, he searched for clues in the trash till he found tucked into the notebook a bank receipt with a mobile phone number written on it. He tried three times to call the number, but his calls went unanswered. Since he still had some chores before the store closed up, he requested his co-worker “Jomar” to send a text message to the number so its owner would be relieved and have a good night’s sleep. It was almost 1 a.m.

Not far from Sta. Mesa, a balikbayan, “Mrs. C”, and her daughter were understandably distraught and disappointed that night.

“I went to a coffee shop with a group of friends, my high school barkada, on Saturday, Aug. 3, around 9:30 p.m. and had placed my purse under the table by my feet. After a while, probably around 11 p.m., when I was reaching down to get my phone from my purse, I realized that it was gone. I was so panicked because I had our US passports, all of the credit cards I had brought, two cellphones, my red notebook, my driver’s license and about $300 and P13,000 because we had just gone to the bank that day,” Mrs. C, who shared the story of the honest pizza rider with The STAR, recounted.

When she and her daughter got a call on her daughter’s cellphone (hers was in the stolen purse), she thought it was a nuisance call.

“At first, I thought it was spam. But since we realized that they had made several attempts to reach us and considering the late hour, we called the number. We were very surprised to find that they knew our names and they mentioned finding our credit cards and passports,” she said.

When told they could pick up their passports at the Yellow Cab Mezza branch anytime the next day, Mrs. C almost couldn’t believed her good fortune.

“To me, this was like a miracle, something totally unexpected. I had given up all hope in recovering my lost items,” she said.

Mrs. C and a cousin then proceeded to the Yellow Cab branch in Mezza to retrieve the lost passports the morning after and were met by the store’s branch manager, Danica Bartolata. The evening manager had kept the items in the vault overnight and Bartolata happily presented them to Mrs. C. Neither Santos or Jomar was around.

When the balikbayan gave Bartolata a “token” of her appreciation, the restaurant manager said she was merely a steward of the lost items. She said credit rightfully belonged to Santos, who apparently had no intention of taking any credit for what he thought was a most natural thing: to return what isn’t his and to help people in need. He wasn’t even in the store during the turnover of the lost items.    

Mrs. C and her cousin texted Santos if he could drop by, and since he lived nearby, he was there shortly.

Santos remembers Mrs. C shaking his hand twice. The second time she shook his hand, the balikbayan pressed something onto Santos’ palm. The pizza boy promptly returned it.

When we asked him why he refused the token of appreciation, which was in cash, he simply said what he did was no big deal to him.

“Wala naman po kasi sa akin ‘yun (ginawa ko). Ang sa akin lang po, maibalik ‘yung passport kasi siyempre kailangang kailangan po nila (What I did wasn’t really a big deal to me. What I really wanted was for them to get their passports back because I knew they needed them badly.)”

“Having grown up here, I’ve always believed that Filipinos are inherently good people,” Mrs. C said gratefully. “I was glad to see that there are still Filipinos who, regardless of their circumstances, continue to live honorably. Especially when I found out that it wasn’t simple to track me down. In fact, it would have been much easier to simply leave the passports and credit cards in the trashcan where they were found. Instead, they made the effort to search through all the paperwork in my notebook to find me.”

The joy he saw in Mrs. C’s face was enough reward for Santos.

“Masaya po ako kasi naibalik ko yung gamit na kailangang-kailangan nila. Alam ko pong kailangan nila ‘yun (I am so happy because they got back what they so badly needed),” he added. “Yun lang (That’s all.)”

Anna May Regala, Yellow Cab – Manila area manager, is very proud of Santos, too. “We are proud our people live by our corporate values. Not only the riders, but the managers as well. People do leave things behind, accidentally or not, and we teach them whether it’s a peso or a fortune, it should be returned.”