Houseboys Warly Miguel and his friend Jano Fortades are honored by local officials. At left is the tourist Kim Mi Hwa.
Also in photo are city councilors Jericho Aguas (right), JC Pamintuan (extreme left) and Alfie Bonifacio (3rd left). Photo by Ding Cervantes
ANGELES CITY – Two teen-aged boys who migrated here as houseboys found themselves suddenly being hailed as heroes as councilors honored them at the city council session hall recently.
Wearing slippers and apparently unaware they would be honored, Warly Miguel and Jano Fortades, both 17 years old from Pasig City, looked more afraid than elated when they were ushered into the legislative chamber of the city hall jampacked by people.
The city council earlier passed a resolution commending their honesty and this Monday, Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan would again commend them before city hall employees during the flag raising ceremony at city hall.
Miguel and Fortades were given plaques commending them for immediately surrendering to the barangay officials a handbag they saw lying along San Angeles St. in Barangay Lourdes Sur on their way to work over the weekend.
The bag contained $3,500 cash in an envelope, two passports, credit and debit cards, phone call cards and a make up kit.
It turned out that the bag was snatched earlier on the same day by an unidentified suspect from Korean tourist Kim Mi Hwa while she was on her way to lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the Balibago commercial district here.
Apparently, the snatcher threw the bag in Lourdes Sur after getting a wallet in it.
The wallet, Hwa said, contained only a few cash in pesos and some photos.
Hwa and her friend another Korean tourist Lim Deok Kyu attended the awarding ceremonies yesterday and turned over to the two boys some cash reward in an envelope.
The reward is apart from another cash slated to be given them by the city government on Monday’s flag ceremony.
The city council’s resolution noted that the boys’ honesty “only proves that even if there are a lot of people who are engaged in illegal acts, there are still those who are honest and dedicated” and “should be emulated by Angelenos.”
The resolution was sponsored by councilors Edu Pamintuan, Jericho Aguas and Alex Indiongco.
Fortades said he and his friend Miguel never considered keeping the bag for themselves. “When we saw it, its contents were scattered on the pavement. So what we did was put them back in the bag and turned the bag over to the nearest barangay office we knew,” he said.
