Poor boy turns in bag with P18,000

DAGUPAN CITY – Eleven-year-old Gicoven Abarquez spends his free time gathering plastic bottles around this city’s downtown area to help augment his family’s meager income.

Abarquez never owned a pair of shoes but despite the family’s need for money, the boy never thought of keeping the bag containing around P18, 0000 which he found while looking for plastic bottles one day.

Abarquez, a grade four pupil at the East Central Elementary School here, was recently honored by the Dagupan City Police for his admirable honesty.

The boy was described by city police Chief Supt Dionisio Borromeo as “malnourished, and who looks like a five-year-old because of his small body frame.”

It was last Sept. 21 when Abarquez, nicknamed Gangga, picked up the pouch bag along Perez Boulevard.

“What was very impressive about this boy was that he never thought of owning the “manna’ but immediately decided to turn it over to the police,” Borromeo told. “It’s really heartwarming because he has high trust in the police.”

Abarquez, the youngest of four children, of Maria a helper in a bagoong factory, and Benito, a construction worker, said his parents would get mad at him if he ever took money which did not belong to him.

“My mother taught us never to own anything that was not ours,” Abarquez told Borromeo.

“If you see a Filipino like him, you will say, ‘There’s still hope in the Philippines after all’, Borromeo said.

The awarding was delayed and held Oct. 8, because Borromeo wanted to add significance to the occasion by holding the ceremony this October in commemoration of Children’s Month.

Details about the money found by Abarquez have not yet been totally divulged because fake claimants have been going to the police station.

Abarquez said he would be able to recognize the man who lost the bag as he saw him board a jeepney when the pouch he was carrying fell.

The jeepney immediately sped off so Abarquez was not able to call the man’s attention, and brought the money to the police.

The police have given the true claimant 60 days, starting Oct. 8 to show up at their station.
If the owner fails to come forward, police said the money would be given as a reward to the Abarquez family.

Local police also plans to make Abarqeuz the beneficiary of their Kinabukasan Mo, Sagot Ko Scholarship family.

Borromeo said they would give school supplies to Abarquez including a school bag, notebooks, papers, ballpens, shoes, and school uniforms.

Abarquez, they learned, has never owned a pair of shoes.

The Kiwanis Club of Dagupena likewise pledged to give Abarquez, some of the books that he needs for school.