While charges of political dishonesty besiege the Philippine presidency and question its integrity, ordinary Filipinos are found to be mostly honest.

The contrast between the present dishonest administration and that of former President Cory Aquino is highlighted by the death of the latter with testimonies on how she had conducted her presidency in terms of finances. Her teaching the Aquino grandchildren not to touch anything that does not belong to them shows the honesty of the popular president.

Once her grandchildren went to visit her in Malacanang, one of them asked her before getting a piece of candy in a glass jar atop her table: “Is this the government’s or ours?”

Three years ago, in a unique way of finding out how honest Filipinos are, Imbestigador, a Channel 7 weekly television program that Mike Enriquez anchors, shot footages of ordinary people’s reactions to 80 wallets dropped in the streets as tests around and outside Metro-Manila.

Sixty-five of the 80 wallets were returned to the Channel 7 agent with the money and papers intact. Each wallet had two Php100 bills, a contact number and a planted letter of a supposed to be mother telling her child to make do with the Php200 allowance for the week.

“Pagkasyahin mo na lang ang Php200 pambaon mo sa isang linggo. Pasensya ka na, anak (I am sorry but this is only I could give you for your week’s allowance),” said the worried mother in her letter.

People of all walks of life – students, housewives, Makati employee, drivers, construction workers, jobless in the squatter’s area and vendors– made it to the split second fame on television as they text the supposed to be owner of the lost wallet or run after the erstwhile Channel 7 agent woman whom they thought dropped the wallet accidentally.

Without any suspicion that it was only a ploy, two high school girls of Ramon Magsaysay High School picked the wallet up and texted the supposed to be owner a few minutes after finding it. They waited for its owner in a store across the school and readily returned the wallet.

Same with the driver who lives in Bulacan who pitied the wallet owner and would even add a few pesos if he had only the money.”Akala ko, nasa elementary grade ang may-ari ng wallet dahil Php200 ang pambaon sa isang linggo. Lalo akong naawa nang makita kong hindi pala bata ang may-ari (I thought at first that the owner of the wallet is only in the elementary grade because the Php200 is so small but I pitied her all the more when I found out I was wrong,” he said while facing the camera.

Following the trail of some of the 15 people who did not return the wallets, Mike Enriquez had traced one old woman who immediately went to a store to buy some rice. A man and a teenager on the street who are strangers to each other divided the Php200 equally with each of them getting Php100 as share.

Professor Louella Bara of the University of the Philippines Sociology Department explained it is hard to measure the honesty of Filipinos. But with 65 people returning the wallets is a sure display of this virtue, which is widely believed to have been disappearing as hunger and poverty spread.

“The 15 people who failed to return the wallets may not have cellphones or could have already gone far that returning them may mean spending more than Php200 from their own pockets,” the professor surmised.

Now let us retrace the footsteps of our ancestors four hundred years ago. When the Chinese merchants could not enter the Philippine islands because of a Spanish prohibition (which was actually meant to exclude them from engaging in business and eventually annihilate them), the Filipinos became their commercial agents who brought the goods from Chinese junks to the native buyers.

Chinese merchants trusted the Filipinos that even if they did not know them they gave them their silk, jars, etcetera, on consignment to be paid usually after a year.

Chinese documents attest that the Filipinos unknown to them returned to the port at the exact time agreed upon with the exact payment paid to the Chinese traders.

Filipinos – rich or poor – have been, indeed, honest through generations.

Former Philippine President Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino died peacefully in her sleep in the wee hours of the first day of August. Her daughters describe her face as “almost smiling” and as if in deep slumber, a forever slumber in serenity.

Bouquet of red, white and yellow flowers from ordinary Filipino people has been piling up at the slightly opened gate of her private residence at Times Street in Quezon City since Saturday. Only her family driver is there to receive and stack them along the fence.

The words “thank you”, “goodbye”, “farewell” and “we love you” were written on the notes that came along with the flowers.

Described as a symbol of simplicity and sincerity, her driver of 46 years, Teody Lansangan, said he is grateful to the former President who helped him send all of his four children to college. “I also stopped smoking because of her prodding,” Lansangan described how her boss influenced his life.

“She treated me like a family member,” the teary-eyed driver said.

General Ramon Montano who served as the chief of the defunct Philippine Constabulary disclosed how he was surprised of the magnanimity and “coolness” of the former President in times of crisis. Remembering the most cherished moment with her, he said he was surprised to have found the president cooking in the Malacanang kitchen while tear gases were being thrown at the Palace gates during one of the eight coup attempts during her presidency.

“Her simplicity and strength of character are worth emulating,” the general said.

“She is the most sincere person I have known in my life,” her former Cabinet Secretary and Senator Franklin Drilon spoke of her. She was very careful of spending the country’s money and makes sure she spends her own personal money, earned from Hacienda Luisita, for dinners or personal pictures that can pass off as state expenses.

She was not lavish and even wears again her old dresses asking her personal advisers “What is wrong with wearing an old dress again?”

Everybody –from the ordinary folks in the street up to high government officials-has been mourning for the demise of the “beacon of democracy” and the first Filipino woman president due to a long battle with colon cancer at 76.

Philippine flags in government offices were lowered at half mast while a staccato of 21-gun salutes were fired on air at the military camps in honor of their former commander-in-chief. An eight cannon ball volley of fire, never heard by residents who live close by, was first fired at Camp Aguinaldo along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the seat of the Philippine national defense. It is being fired every 30 minutes thereafter until her funeral on Wednesday, declared a non-working holiday by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Her cortege as she is being brought by honor guards atop a six-wheeler truck off to Manila Cathedral, met by grief stricken ordinary citizens who showered her banner-draped coffin with yellow confetti, equals that of her husband Ninoy Aquino’s funeral- also in August 25 years ago. People describe her as a person with a “pure heart.”

Trully, there is serenity in sincerity. Adieu, Madame President.