CEBU CITY, Philippines -- Is it a crime to keep a treasure found in a garbage dump? Or is it a case of finders, keepers?

A 16-year-old boy who regularly searched the garbage in the Inayawan Landfill in Cebu City found on Wednesday morning a sack containing $60,000, or almost P3 million.

He first thought the bills were fake so he approached a couple who facilitated the exchange of the dollars into pesos.

After confirming that the bills were not fake, the 16-year-old kept the money, shared some with his fellow scavengers, and even distributed kilos of rice to them.

However, the owner of a money-changing business in Barangay (village) Calamba, Cebu City, surfaced and claimed ownership of the dollar bills, which he said had been placed inside a small sack and mistakenly thrown away as garbage.

The moneychanger informed Calamba barangay chairman Victor Quijano Jr. that he went to the Inayawan landfill Wednesday to look for the sack containing the dollar bills but could not find it.

Quijano, in an interview over station dyLa, said a person at the landfill informed the moneychanger that a scavenger found the money.

The viilage chief, who went to the Inayawan landfill and saw people who appeared to be celebrating, said he sought the help of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to recover the money.

He said they already had the names of the scavenger and the couple who helped exchange the dollar bills into pesos.

But the NBI agents who went to the dumpsite found the three no longer around, he said.

But lawyer Briccio Joseph Boholst, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City Chapter, said the NBI could not arrest or charge the scavenger.

"There has to be intent to commit the crime. In this situation, where is the intent? I don't think there was even a crime committed," Boholst said over station dyLA.

He said the alleged owner should show evidence he owned the money.

Aside from a claim of ownership, Boholst said he could not see how the moneychanger could prove the money was his.

He also said the money could be considered a discarded item because it was thrown away.

"If somebody finds something in the garbage, it would mean this was discarded and he could claim it as his own," Boholst said.

He noted that the question of the boy's honesty could not be applied in this case.

"When you find something of value in the garbage, you would not ask who the owner was because it would be difficult to determine the identity," he said.

Meanwhile, Quijano refused to identify the moneychanger for security reasons but he said the moneychanger's operation was legal. He said the owners were known personalities in his village.