Better days

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” This is the inscription at the James Farley Post Office in New York. USA. It is the motto by which the US Postal Service lives by, and lives by seriously. It is the motto that all post offices should adhere to. The mail is sacred. There is no discussion or argument on that. That’s why it has to be treated with the utmost respect, and delivered to where they are supposed to go. Remember, shipping is never free.

 There is a reason to my preface. Apparently, the Philippine Post Office, or at least some of its employees, have no respect whatsoever for the mail. Captured on CCTV in a Pasay City post office, a janitor is seen taking a package, putting it in a garbage bag to conceal it, then opens it to see what kind of loot he has obtained. All this monitored on the CCTV. He was accosted and detained. His confession is what makes my blood boil. Apparently he shows no remorse, and justifies somewhat that he isn’t the only one doing the pilfering, and that he has been doing it for months! My goodness! Hasn’t all the complaints of lost or obviously pilfered packages convinced the postmaster general that something was going on, and it took months for them to catch one?

 The Philippine Post Office has seen better days. Aside from the dominance of electronic mail, it has also seen a decrease in revenue from parcels and packages. Last 2010, the post office raised their postal rates across the board by almost fifty percent. This killed most online businesses that were doing well, primarily because shipping from the Philippines was cheap. Fifty percent is a large increase by anybody’s standard, so most online businesses simply closed shop. We could no longer compete with Hong Kong in terms of shipping to anywhere in the world. It’s like shooting themselves in the foot. I can understand the increase, as fuel around that time was expensive, and the dollar was king. That’s no longer the case. The peso has shown that it can build itself like a bodybuilder and compete with the rest of the world’s currencies. Still the rate remains. And now this expose on pilferage. It’s like shooting themselves in the head.

 The post office now suffers the same image problem as the Philippine National Police. It is losing the trust of the people, if it has not already. They have to get their act together. They need to show the people that they will catch these thieves and prosecute them harshly, and not return them back into circulation, which is what the PNP does. It has become a catch and release stream, where lawbreakers are still retained as law enforcers! They have to install more CCTV units to guard everyone, since everyone is now suspect! They need to devise a reward system for reporting a pilferer. And they need to do it fast. Otherwise, people will just look elsewhere to have their packages safely delivered. Probably more expensive ways, but that’s what safety and peace of mind costs nowadays.

 What could be more expensive than being robbed?