Being new in an unknown country, you do tend to get a little disoriented. What if you lose all your belongings in a new city!
That’s what happened with Australian national, Trent Shields, at the Calle Uno Coworking Space in Baguio City, Philippines. He completely forgot about his luggage, and it took him a good thirty minutes to realize his mistake. What happened next was not what Trent expected.
Honesty is one trait hard to come across these days, especially among people who have to struggle so hard to make ends meet. Mostly, for small amounts or small little things, people tend to be quite nice and try to return what they find to the owner.
But the true test of your honesty is when you stumble upon a substantial amount. That is when most people are tempted to consider it as a blessing and keep it for themselves. But this was not the case with the Filipino cab driver, Reggie Cabututan.
When Reggie realized that his passenger has left behind a bag, he immediately went back to locate him.
Meanwhile Trent realized he had lost his bag that contained his Passport, Macbook Pro, money, everything was in there—all amounting to more than $7,000. He decided to report the bag missing. All he could remember was the cab was white. His chances of recovering his bag were pretty slim.
It was when he was about to report the missing luggage to the authorities that the driver of Dustin Brant Taxi came in.
Reggie had come back to return the luggage! All the contents of the bag were intact, worth a whopping amount of Australian $7,000. A very tempting amount for a cab driver indeed.
During the City Hall’s Monday morning flag ceremony on January 23, Reggie Cabututan was invited, where his honesty was recognized in the ceremony.
When Trent Shields learnt of it, he cancelled his return flight, retrieved his luggage from the plane and traveled back to Baguio to attend the ceremony, an extremely admirable act on Trent’s part for sure!
Not many people really care for the less fortunate ones and try and pay them back.
At the ceremony Trent Shield’s company, the Coder Factory, and VIVIXX Academy of Baguio decided to award ‘the honest taxi driver’ with a Certificate of Scholarship, valued at Two Hundred Twenty Thousand Pesos (P220,000.00), to the six-month Coding Boot Camp that will kick off in June 2017.
On completion of the course, he is guaranteed an internship with an Australian company, leading to a job that will pay him a starting salary of up to 1.7 Million Pesos per year. In addition, his children will also receive scholarships.
One good deed deserves another. When acts of honesty and other positive traits are rewarded and acclaimed, they tend to become encouraging lessons for society.
