Cotabato honors 26 tricycle drivers with cash rewards for honesty

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Up to 26 marginalized tricycle drivers in Kabacan town in Cotabato province received a P10,000 cash reward each for individual acts of honesty during a symbolic rite on Thursday, October 10.

The P260,000 total worth of incentives from the office of Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza were turned over last Thursday to the 26 tricycle drivers during a symbolic rite at the campus of the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) in Kabacan.

Reports by radio stations in cities and provinces across Central Mindanao on Saturday morning, October 12, stated that the event was jointly officiated by Cotabato Congresswoman Samantha Santos, Kabacan Mayor Evangeline Guzman and USM’s president, Francisco Garcia.

The 26 Muslim and Christian tricycle drivers were given cash rewards for having promptly returned to owners, among them USM students, their bags containing money and jewelry, important documents and other valuables that were left in their tricycles.

Their separate acts of honesty, in recent months, went viral on Facebook.

Taliño-Mendoza, who, as governor, is also the chairperson of the influential multi-sector Regional Development Council 12, told reporters on Saturday that she has programmed the grant of special bonuses for acts of honesty by residents in other towns in Cotabato and in the provincial capital, Kidapawan City.

"We ought to make them feel important for having exemplified honesty in the strictest sense," Taliño-Mendoza said.

Taliño-Mendoza has directed her constituent-mayors to help document any of such gestures by residents in their respective towns as basis for the release to them of special citations and corresponding monetary grants.