BAGUIO CITY—A taxi driver from Rosario, La Union is getting a guaranteed job in Australia after he returned some luggage to an Australian who left it in his vehicle several days ago.
Reggie Cabutotan, 30, received a certificate granting him a six-month scholarship in a local training academy based in Kalye Uno here, with the scholarship worth P220,000.
Trent Shields, the Australian businessman whose bag Cabutotan returned, then guaranteed the father of four a job at a coder factory Down Under that would pay him a starting salary of P1.7 million monthly.
Both men were present at City Hall on Monday, with Cabutotan overwhelmed by the Australian’s generous reward for his honest act.
“I was surprised to receive information from my operator that I have to be present at City Hall early Monday morning,” said Cabutotan. “I did not expect that I will receive the surprise of my life from what I think was a simple thing that I had done in returning the luggage of my Australian passenger.”
Cabutotan has been driving the taxi, owned by an overseas Filipino worker who lives in Victoria Village here, in Baguio for six years now.
Shields said the items inside the luggage he left in the taxi was worth “several millons” and included documents he needs for his transactions while in the Philippines.
The scholarship he granted the taxi driver was a business entrepreneurship course combined with software development training that will allow Cabutotan to work in his coder factory in Sydney.
The Australian was about to head to a police station near where Cabutotan dropped him off at Kalye Uno early on January 17 when the honest cabbie showed up with the bag, which he noticed when he parked along the roadside a few minutes after they parted.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan commended Cabutotan’s honest act, saying it will sustain the city’s identity as a home of honest taxi drivers.
“We are proud of Cabutotan because it again proves that we are able to sustain teaching our tourism frontliners the importance of being honest, to help boost the influx of more visitors to our city,” Domogan stressed.