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Store clerk returns missing purse of visiting Chinese salesman
A store’s trusted stock clerk yesterday returned to a visiting Chinese national his lost purse containing $1,071 cash, $6 worth of RMB, four credit cards, and an identification card.
“I’m very happy and very thankful,” said the 26-year-old Xiao Song Yang after Allan Vila handed him his purse containing the money and other items at 99 Cents Supermarket in Garapan yesterday at 5pm.
Xiao Song Yang, left, smiles as Allan Vila handed him his lost purse that contained $1,071 cash, credit cards, and an identification card yesterday afternoon at 99 Cents Supermarket in Garapan. Yang lost the purse in the store on Tuesday night, but Vila found it. (Ferdie de la Torre)
Other store’s employees, who were smiling, witnessed the turning over of the purse to Yang.
Yang, a car salesman, said he thought he could not find his purse anymore and that without the money, credit cards, and his identification card he could not return to China.
Yang said he will tell his friends in China about the good deeds of the Filipino.
Vila, a native of Pangasinan, Philippines, said he is happy to return the purse to the rightful owner.
Vila said as a trusted employee of 99 Cents, where he worked since 2001, he secured the purse when he found it at their store’s water refilling station on Tuesday at 9pm. Yesterday at 12am, he was already off.
Yesterday morning, Vila informed his friend and neighbor, Boyet Pangilinan, about the purse and expressed his desire to return it to the owner.
The credit cards and identification card, however, were written in Chinese and there was no address of the owner in the purse.
Vila and Pangilinan then agreed to inform Saipan Tribune about the purse and money before handing them over to the Saipan Mayor’s Office.
Yang, however, returned yesterday morning to 99 Cents and inquired if anybody found his purse. A worker then called Vila, who was at his house at the time.
Yang was so happy upon learning that Vila secured the purse.
Yang said he only discovered that his purse was missing yesterday morning. He said he is very thankful to Vila’s honesty.
Vila first came to Saipan in 1997 where he worked as a bartender.
