A young girl, whose family often went to bed hungry, has astounded Filipinos by returning more than 300,000 pesos ($44,000) which fell from a speeding motorbike.
'It was not mine,' was the simple explanation offered by 12-year-old Cristina Bugayong, who has risen to celebrity status and earned praise from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
On the night of January 4, Cristina, one of eight children, was chatting with a friend outside her makeshift home in suburban Quezon City, when the cash and cheques fell from a passing motorbike.
She took the cash to her mother, Luzviminda, who says she touched it just to see what it 'felt like'. Mrs Bugayong - who earns 3,000 pesos a month from washing clothes and as a food vendor - said it would have been enough to start her dream business, a neighbourhood shop.
Cristina's father has been jobless for the past four years and five of his children, aged five to 22, had to drop out of school.
Neighbours jokingly told her to give the money to them, but Cristina said she decided to turn it in because she 'pitied' the man who had lost it.