Is honesty, as taught in elementary years ago, still valued and practiced by Filipinos today? If you found something that is not yours, will you return it to its owner, or turn it over to somebody who can be trusted to return it to its owner, or are you going to keep it?
On Nov. 5, 2012, I went to the Central Post Office in Lawton, Manila, to drop some letters for friends abroad and to get my letters in the locked box section. When I was at the exit area of the postal office, it rained heavily, so I sat down on the pavement near a security officer. I started reading the letters and the magazines I got. When the rain stopped, I proceeded to my next destination elsewhere but forgot to get a book I had laid on the cemented pavement. The book’s title is “The Miracles of Usotherapy.” It is part of the research materials I am reviewing for my alternative medicine project. Outside the post office was a janitor cleaning the area.
I returned to the postal office the following day and asked the security detail there if somebody turned over a book titled “The Miracles of Usotherapy.” The security guard opened a cabinet, but it had no book by that title. “I will ask the janitor about it,” he said.
I badly need the book. Will the party who picked up the book please return it to me? A modest “gift” awaits him. It is my hope that the person who found my book still believes that “Honesty is the best policy.”
—PROF. JAIME B. RAMIREZ, 1237 Instruccion St., Sampaloc, Manila