No money down the drain for Philippine sanitation workers

[October 18, 2018]    MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines sanitation workers unblocking a drain discovered dozens of wallets had been clogging it up, some containing credit cards and IDs, but no money.

A man working near the scene shot video footage showing the workers in a village in Batangas city, south of the capital Manila, sorting through wallets and removing and laying out items including identity cards found in them.

Sanitation workers sort out credit cards and IDs after retrieving wallets from a drain, after local media reported that a stash of wallets were clogging a canal in Poblacion, Batangas City, Philippines October 16, 2018, in this still image taken from a video obtained from social media. Domav Panganiban/via REUTERS

Police officer Mario David, who went to investigate what he suspected were stolen items, said many of the wallets were pulled out from deep in the drain, meaning they had been there for a long time.

None of them contained any money.

The items were turned over to police so they could identify and alert the owners who were likely victims of pickpockets, David said.

(Reporting and Writing by Karen Lema and Nur-Azna Sanusi; Editing by Karishma Singh)

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