Akash Sama­roo

He prob­a­bly re­al­ly need­ed the mon­ey for him­self, but one act of hon­esty has not on­ly in­spired a na­tion but will now great­ly im­prove Earnest Con­stan­tine’s qual­i­ty of life.

On May 10, Con­stan­tine be­came the sub­ject of wide­spread ap­pre­ci­a­tion af­ter find­ing a bag con­tain­ing thou­sands of dol­lars and re­turn­ing it to the own­er, a farmer.

And yes­ter­day, the 20-year-old farmer was ho­n­oured by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and An­gos­tu­ra for his no­ble ac­tion.

And it was at the House of An­gos­tu­ra in Laven­tille that those in at­ten­dance learnt of Con­stan­tine’s cir­cum­stances and how easy it would have been to take that mon­ey for him­self.

“We learnt that Mr Con­stan­tine lives alone in a home with no elec­tric­i­ty and im­me­di­ate­ly thought of a way to make his life more com­fort­able,” said Ian Forbes, An­gos­tu­ra’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer.

But there’s a say­ing that hon­esty and in­tegri­ty are al­ways re­ward­ed.

“This morn­ing, An­gos­tu­ra is do­nat­ing a gen­er­a­tor to Mr Con­stan­tine. This gen­er­a­tor will en­able him to bring some light and com­fort in­to his home. An­gos­tu­ra is al­so gen­er­at­ing a chiller and two months’ worth of gro­ceries,” Forbes said.

Con­stan­tine was al­so pre­sent­ed with a new brush cut­ter by FT Far­fan Lim­it­ed.

Mem­bers of the me­dia in­ter­viewed the young farmer af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, but he is a man of lit­tle words.

“I feel thank­ful and good about it, I feel great for all the good things,” Con­stan­tine said.

When asked what made him de­cide to do the right thing, Con­stan­tine said it was just the right thing to do.

“I see the man was look­ing for some­thing and I shout­ed out to him that his mon­ey was on the ground.”

Al­so speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said his ac­tions prove that there are still young peo­ple on the right path.

“In Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day, most of our is­sues that ex­ist in our so­ci­ety as it re­lates to de­viant be­hav­iour and crim­i­nal­i­ty, is com­ing out of when you look at the age group from the young per­sons and this demon­strates that it is not all the young per­sons in­volved in de­viant be­hav­iour.”

Ja­cob said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is thank­ful for Con­stan­tine’s ex­am­ple.

“And I hope peo­ple in the up­per ech­e­lons in so­ci­ety take your ex­am­ple, be­cause some of us who can re­al­ly in­flu­ence change, some of our be­hav­iour and ac­tions are not con­sis­tent and young peo­ple will see that and want to em­u­late that in the neg­a­tive.”

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds said Con­stan­tine could have giv­en in to temp­ta­tion but he is clear­ly made of stern­er stuff.

“You had de­ci­sions to make and dev­ils and temp­ta­tions to face and you faced them pow­er­ful­ly and you rose above self­ish­ness, greed, you rose above thought­less­ness and you al­lowed this high prin­ci­pal of dig­ni­ty and hon­esty and kind­ness, all of them are linked, you al­lowed those to pre­vail.”

Hinds ac­knowl­edged that Con­stan­tine may not have want­ed his lev­el of at­ten­tion giv­en his mod­esty and shy per­son­al­i­ty.

“But we can’t help it as has been said ear­li­er we live in a so­ci­ety where the strength you demon­strat­ed is sore­ly lack­ing.”

Now dubbed “Hon­est Ernest,” Hinds said his name and deed should be re­mem­bered for a very long time.