Watch: Millions worth of cash rain down on Philippine highway; residents scramble to pick up free money

It literally rained money on a coastal highway in the Philippines on Tuesday — and in just a few moments, a swarm of drivers and commuters scrambled to pick up the cash strewn all over the road.

It was no miracle. The free money didn't come from the heavens — it turned out the cash flew out of the broken bag of a collector who was riding a motorcycle on the Cebu South Coastal Road.

As part of his job, the man was supposed to remit payments from businesses at a property in the area. He stashed all the money — estimated to be worth 3 to 4 million pesos (around Dh200,000 to Dh265,000) — into his backpack and rode off, according to a local media report.

While travelling on the highway, he didn't notice that his bag's zipper broke — and that the cash was already flying all over the road. In fact, he wouldn't have known it was happening if not for a motorist, a Good Samaritan, who alerted him.

By then, however, he had already lost over a million pesos. He tried blocking some vehicles but couldn't go near the area because there was already a big crowd of people getting their share of the cash.

In this video, people are seen scooping up bank notes in different denominations, from 20 to 1,000-peso bills:

The police were able to recover around 2.083 million pesos (around Dh138,000) out of the total 3 to 4 million pesos (around Dh200,000 to Dh265,000).

"We are now calling on the residents to return the money because this is a big amount and if not returned, the poor money collector will have to pay it back," a police officer was quoted as saying in the report.

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