Only half of P4 million cash lost at SRP recovered 1 day after incident

Police: Only P44,850 out of the missing nearly P2 million cash has been returned

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Only a little over P2 million  in cash has been recovered out of the P4 million that fell out of the bag of a money remittance collector at the South Road Properties (SRP) last July 4.

Since the evening of July 4, and today, July 5,  only P44,850 of the lost money has been turned over to the police.

Police Colonel Ireneo Dalogdog, City Director of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), confirmed that only this amount had been returned and turned over to them from some of the honest individuals who were able to pick up some of the scattered money bills at the Cebu South Coastal Road of the SRP.

READ: P4 million in cash flies out of bag in SRP, collector pleads finders to return money

Half of P4M lost at SRP still missing

This meant that money remittance collector, John Mark Barrientos, has only recovered P2,044,933 of the P4 million that he had with him that day.

This also meant that Barrientos has yet to recover some P1,995,067 or still nearly P2 million of the cash that fell out of his backpack when its zipper broke while he was traversing the SRP that day.

A video of people getting off their vehicles to pick up the scattered money bills on the road that fell off the bag of Barrientos went viral on social media.

Barrientos, the money remittance collector, after only recovering some P2,000,083 that day went to the Mambaling Police Station to seek help for the recovery of the nearly P2 million that he lost.

He also appealed to those people who picked up the flying and scattered money bills at the SRP to return them.

READ: Netizens rally behind embattled collector, ask people to return money lost in SRP incident

How much of P4 million lost at SRP returned

He said that on Tuesday evening, P21,150 was turned over to the Mambaling Police Station and on Wednesday morning, P10,200 was recovered.

And P13,500 was also turned over to the Carbon Police Station on Tuesday evening.

READ: SRP CASH INCIDENT: Those who won’t return money of embattled collector may face legal consequences 

Dalogdog appealed to the individuals who picked up the money by the road to voluntarily come forward and turn over the money to the authorities to help out the remittance collector who would have to pay the lost amount.

“Atong imbestigahan para ma-identify nato kung kinsa ang tag-iya sa katong mga sakyanan. Naa may mga nawng didto nga makita nato kay naa may video nga gi-upload. Kung kinsa man to sila, kung mao gali nang usa sa inyo didto, wala mo magboluntaryo nga iuli ninyo ang maong kwarta nga inyong napunit, palihug na lang pud para pud makatabang mo sa nawad-an sa kwarta,” he said.

(We will investigate so that we can identify those owners of the vehicles. There are faces that can be seen there, we can see them on the video that was uploaded. If whoever you are, if you are there on the video, then you did not volunteered to return the money that you picked up, please return it even if it is just to help the person who lost the money.)

Police probe, appeal to public

Dalogdog said they are conducting an investigation, in coordination with the Land and Transportation Office (LTO), to determine the identities of the owners of the vehicles caught in the videos of the incident and the persons who took the money.

He added that if the individuals in the video are identified and do not turn over the money to the authorities, they will be facing charges of theft.

Dalogdog also said that as they continue to investigate the incident, they do not discount the possibility of the incident being done on purpose taking into account how the money was stored.

He added that the collector should have stored the money more securely so that the situation could have been avoided.

READ: Naia passenger lost P50,000 cash but quickly found it with help of airport staff