City worker proves honesty is way of life

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – For city hall employee Michael Lopez, honesty is a way of life.

Close to two years after returning the cash-laden wallet of a Lingayen town official which he found under a client’s chair in his office at the city environment and parks management department, Lopez found and returned another wallet he found lying along Bonifacio Road last April 26.

It was a Saturday and Lopez, 37, was driving a taxi cab at around 2 p.m. as his second job to augment his meager income as a job order employee of the Roadside Inspection Testing and Monitoring Team of the Water/Waste Water and Ambient Air Management Division of the CEPMO, when he spotted an old wallet in the middle of the road.

“Passersby were ignoring the wallet as it looked old and worn out maybe thinking it was purposely discarded by the owner or thrown away by a pickpocket but my first thought was it may have been dropped by its motorcycle-riding owner and may still contain something important to the owner like the driver’s license which is hard to obtain nowadays so listening to my instinct, I stopped and picked it up,” Lopez related.

“When traffic stopped at the rotunda of Bonifacio St., I checked the wallet and saw it contained cash amounting to P17,300 so I immediately searched for some identification cards and proceeded to the ABS-CBN Baguio station to turn it over and to have it announced,” he added.

The ABS-CBN Baguio management announced Lopez’ find via its FM radio program MOR and at 4:30 pm, he received a call from the owner Bryner Conchao, a plumber and maintenance employee of the Saint Louis University (SLU).

Conchao told Lopez the money was for the salary of his co-workers.  He was aboard their service vehicle on the way to SLU Laboratory Elementary School and did not notice it when the wallet fell off his pocket.

Apart from driving a cab after office hours and during weekends, Lopez also does all-around on-call jobs as a mechanic, cook and others to augment his income and provide for his wife Yvonne and their five children whose ages range from 2 months to 14 years.

He expressed hopes of landing a permanent job at the city government where he has served as job order employee for close to five years now.

Edith Hallare, former Lingayen vice mayor who owned the first wallet Lopez returned and who now considers Lopez a member of her family and “a friend for life” called Lopez after watching the ABS-CBN feature done by newshen Ada Sibayan on the incident and hailed him anew for his honest deed.

“You did it again.  It’s really in your nature,” Lopez quoted Hallare as telling him.

An overjoyed Hallare joined the flag-raising ceremonies at City Hall in June two years ago to pay tribute to Lopez for his act of honesty.

“Now I know why people come to Baguio not only because of the good climate and the good views but also because of the good character of its people who like Michael are honest accommodating and hospitable,” Hallare told city officials and employees then.