Friday the 13th proved to be a lucky day for 55-year-old Rodrigo Corta and his fellow scavengers of the landfill site in barangay Umapad, Mandaue City.
On that day, they went up the landfill to gather whatever useful items they can sell cheap and instead ended up with gold and diamond jewelry estimated by police to be worth P2 million.
But their celebratory mood was short-lived as barangay officials found out about their sudden financial windfall and reported it to the police.
Corta, a resident of sitio Tambis in barangay Umapad, said 48-year-old scavenger Antonio Quizon first found the sack where a box filled with jewelry fell out from the collected garbage.
The box contained two gold bracelets, two gold rings and a gold-and-diamond necklace.
Another scavenger, 24-year-old Ida Montecalvo, found a gold bracelet, which she sold to a person who passed by their house for P15,000.
The blue sack of garbage was dropped by the garbage truck that serviced barangay Cabangcalan. Corta said he couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“I thanked God for the grace that He gave us, it’s not our money, it was just thrown away,” Corta told Cebu Daily News.
He also said his wife immediately went to the Sto. Niño church in Cebu City the day after to pray in thanksgiving.
‘Mistaken for a thief’
Corta said he immediately went home and asked his friend Bernardo Baylon to pawn one of the bracelets.
“I looked dirty, I might be mistaken for a thief,” he told Cebu Daily News.
Baylon pawned the bracelet at a pawnshop in barangay Centro also last Friday at P127,000.
Corta gave Baylon P16,000 and bought lumber and other construction supplies to repair the shanty he and his family lived in.
His 49-year-old wife Cresencia said they also distributed P500 to their neighbors and even gave P1,200 to a neighbor whose child was confined in a hospital due to convulsions.
The couple gave P500 to the garbage truck driver who serviced the Cabangcalan and Canduman routes. Rodrigo capped the night by drinking with friends.
But Corta and his friends were unable to spend the rest of the amount after garbage collectors and a driver informed barangay Cabangcalan captain Martin Cosido about their sudden cash bounty.
Cosido called the office of the Investigation and Detection Management Branch (IDMB) of the Mandaue City police to report the incident.
Turnover
Corta and his friends were invited to the police precinct for questioning last Tuesday.
Corta and his friends turned over the jewelry along with the remaining P36,500 and the bracelet’s receipt along with the P16,000 he gave to Baylon.
Quizon then turned over a gold bracelet adorned with diamonds.
However, Montecalvo was unable to turn over the gold bracelet because the man she sold it to already paid her the remaining P10,000 balance.
Among the jewelry turned over was a University of San Carlos 1962 class ring owned by Vicente H. Tan.
Cosido said the garbage collectors told him that they collected trash outside the Inday Dried Mangos area owned by Tan last Jan. 12.
Tan’s wife and their daughter denied that they lost jewelry.
But IDMB deputy chief Insp. Ramil Morpos said he will verify personally from the Tan family whether they lost jewelry or not.
Answer to prayers
If no one comes forward to claim the jewelry, Morpos said they will turn them over to Mandaue City Hall.
After scavenging at the Umapad dumpsite for 28 years, the Corta couple said the discovery of the jewelry was an answer to their prayers.
Corta has nine siblings, three of whom are already married and two suffering from goiter.
Cresencia said they will deposit whatever proceeds remained in a bank for their children.
“It was just too bad that the money was returned, I could have used it to build a house,” Rodrigo said.
Montecalvo said she already bought a nebulizer for her asthmatic mother and paid school fees for her child and nieces.
She said she was outraged when police accused her of stealing the jewelry.
“I was brought to the police and then taken pictures of. I told them that I didn’t steal anything, I got the jewelry from the landfill,” a tearful Montecalvo said.
Insp. Michael Anthony Bastes, IDMB chief, said they will still search for other pieces of jewelry that have yet to be recovered and conduct further investigation on the case.