MANILA, Philippines – Do you still believe in Good Samaritans?
To many, Cha Buenconsejo’s story about retrieving her lost phone is too good to be true. She detailed the incident on Tuesday, July 24 on her Facebook account.
"The joy of getting my phone back after missing for 7 months pales in comparison to the comfort of knowing there are still good hearted people out there..." she says in her post.
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The story went viral, racking up to 132,000 reactions, 11,000 comments, and 42,000 shares as of writing.
Early in January 2018, Buenconsejo left her phone in an Uber but failed to get it back it through the driver. “When your phone goes missing for 2 days, you’re pretty sure it’s not coming back,” she recalled.
She only remembered about her lost phone 7 months later when she received a random message from a stranger. The message came from Arcel Concepcion who claimed he had found a phone in an airconditioned bus bound for Fairview on July 17.
Given that the phone went missing more than half a year ago, Buenconsejo’s friends advised her against meeting up with a stranger. They argued that it could be a modus. What convinced Buenconsejo to proceed, nonetheless, was how he sent his text messages.
“Everyone told me not to meet up with him. A lost and found phone being returned after 7 months is just too good to be true. Honestly, the only thing that made me trust him was how he ended his texts with ‘God bless’,” Buenconsejo told Rappler.
According to Buenconsejo's post, the moment she saw Concepcion on Tuesday, she knew that he was a good guy. In fact, Concepcion even apologized for not notifying her right after he found the phone because he was not able to immediately buy a charger.
“He handed me my phone along with the charger he bought," Buenconsejo shared in her Facebook post. "He told me ‘mahirap kumita pakiangatan niyo yung gamit niyo mukhang mahal yung phone na 'yan’.” (It's tough to earn money, so take care of your valuables. That's an expensive phone.)
Since he refused to accept a cash reward, Buenconsejo insisted to at least give him money for transportation because he had come all the way from Bulacan just to return her belongings.
In the comments section of the post, netizens hoped to experience the same thing and some wished that more people were like Concepcion.
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Have you experienced something similar? Share your inspiring stories that have restored your faith in humanity on X! – Rappler.com
Dane Dagatan is a Rappler Intern. He studies Broadcast Communication at the Lyceum of the Philippines University.