Another honest Naia janitor returns OFW’s wedding money

Honesty is apparently getting contagious at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

Naia officials on Wednesday commended another janitor who returned a passenger’s wallet containing foreign currency equivalent to around P100,000.

Daniel Valentin, 42, received a $100 reward from the wallet’s Filipino owner, Jerome Franco Biason, an overseas worker from Tarlac province.

He was the sixth Naia worker this year to be cited by management for honesty.

Biason, who flew in from Dubai, boarded a taxi at Naia Terminal 1 around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday when he accidentally dropped his wallet. Luckily for him, Valentin saw the wallet and immediately turned it over to the airport police.

The police found the cash and a card containing the contact number of Biason’s mother. Calls were made until Biason got back to the airport later that same day.

“I did not have second thoughts [about returning the wallet]. I know it belongs to someone and (the money) is intended for something,” Valentin, a father of four who rents a house inside Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, told reporters.

Valentin said he was hesitant to accept the reward money but Biason insisted. According to him, Biason was saving the recovered money for his upcoming wedding.

The janitor said he immediately had his $100 reward converted to peso and then used part of the money to buy some treats for his coworkers and policemen. He went home with the remaining P1,000.

Valentin is set to be formally honored by the Manila International Airport Authority, government operator of Naia, in the agency’s next flag ceremony.