BI employee returns cash, cards

Bureau of Immigration building. Photo from Bureau of Immmigration website

MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Immigration (BI) will honor an employee who returned a wallet containing cash and credit cards to its owner.

In a statement, Immigration Commissioner Siegfred Mison said the bureau will present a letter of commendation to Gil Maat, an administrative aide in the BI’s board of special inquiry.

Maat returned a wallet that had been left on his table by Korean national Jin Sook Kim who transacted some business at the BI main office in Manila. The wallet contained cash totaling P7,770 and credit cards.

In an interview, Maat said he returned the wallet because the owner would need it, “and he didn’t want the same thing to happen to him,” Mison said.

BI officials commended Maat for his honesty and expressed hope that other government employees would emulate “his very commendable performance,” Mison said.

Last Tuesday, Jony Villon, a trolley retriever at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, turned over to authorities an envelope containing $4,800 he found in the airport parking lot—Niña P. Calleja