The honesty of an elementary public school student in Quezon City in returning a package containing cash and checks was very refreshing news last week after the murder of Judge Henrick Gingoyon.

According to news accounts from our reporter, the girl, Cristina Bugayong, 12, of the Tomas Morato Elementary School picked up the package which fell from a motorcycle-riding messenger.

Temptations came from neighbors who wanted her to keep the money and share it with them. The Bugayong family of seven children, a jobless father and a mother who helped out in a small school canteen was an occasional laundry woman to put food on their table, certainly could have used the R300,000 or so that Cristina found.

But no, Cristina stood firm. That money was not hers and had to be returned to the rightful owner. This wasn’t’ the first time she found money and returned it either. So honesty really was a virtue she practiced daily in her hand-to-mouth existence. To avoid being tempted, she even entrusted the package to her uncle and aunt.

How many of us can say that we are as honest as Cristina? And how many of us reacted negatively to her decision to return the money?

"Hay, gaga… pera na naging bato pa! (Stupid girl … it was already money in her hands).

Our level of apathy to government graft and corruption is really at an all-time high, so that we no longer get scandalized by scandals involving this and that official or their relatives. Everyone is doing it, so, it’s okay to do it too?

However, we must also remember that corruption is not limited to government officials and workers. There is petty corruption and big-time stealing even in private firms…filching paper clips, bond paper, empty discs, using office time for games and outside work…On the other hand, there are also employers who are not honest with their workers’ salaries or whatever is due them, encouraging their people to steal from them.

I recall a complaint from an employee of a fast food chain that is common among contractual workers. The employment agency that is contracted by the chain to provide them crew members did not return the cash bond she put up when she was hired.

The agency also deducted an amount from her very diligently but when it came to returning what was due her, she had to wait for months before they paid up.

I really hope that Cristina’s example inspire other youngsters to be honest. I am afraid that now, there are very few Cristina’s to serve as role models of our young generation.

There are more questionable models that are written about, featured on television and radio whose claim to fame are their almost naked bodies and their willingness to do anything to make money than poor, honest, unglamorous Cristina.

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NOTES... Charles "Chuckie" Ibay, pianist, fresh from his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York will be home for a preValentine concert at the Little Theater for the CCP on Jan. 26.

What makes FilAmerican Chuckie truly unique is that he is blind from birth (from too much oxygen when he was in the incubator for months in the US) but is a very talented concert pianist and budding singer, too!

As a very young boy, he was already picking out notes from their piano, astounding results when he began to learn to play sophisticated pieces by himself. He did this by listening to tapes of the pieces. Later, his parents enrolled him with a music teacher.

We met him last year when he came to his parents’ homeland for a concert and he guested on our show on RPN 9, "Dee’s Day".

Despite his blindness, Chuckie struck us as very cheerful and positive-thinking teenager. He is very religious too and he told us that he has special saints to call on when he wants to learn a difficult concerto or a new foreign language. You see, he speaks and writes in more than five foreign languages including German, Italian, and French!

Last year also, he played at the Rizal grandstand for the church’s event honoring migrant Christian families. His homecoming concert on Jan. 26, is entitled "Love Comes Home."