Mail call  

The fire that practically consumed the entire Manila Central Post Office building is unarguably a tragedy and a huge loss. While its function as a mail service may be deemed outdated and irrelevant in this day of instant messaging and email, the building housed many important documents, artifacts and collections that are priceless, like its stamp collection.

I know I’m dating myself as belonging to the “good old days,” but the post office played an important part in my growing up years. We had penpals then, usually from abroad, with whom we exchanged letters, sometimes photos, and in the process learned about the life and culture of another country. Having the mailman bring a letter from abroad – usually in airmail envelopes with the red and blue stripes – was always eagerly awaited.

An integral part of the post office experience are the stamps. I don’t know if stamp collecting is still a hobby for the youth of today, but in my time most of us – my cousins, classmates – collected stamps, that’s why penpals were chosen from different countries, and they would make sure the stamps on their letters were different each time, and we did the same so they would have nice stamps from the Philippines. We didn’t have money to buy those fancy, rare stamps from the bookstores, but sometimes we’d get a nice set as a gift, and we’d carefully put them in our albums and show them off. I still have my stamp albums, and who knows? They could be worth quite a bit by now!

Believe it or not I still use the post office – as an aside, how many people even know where the post office nearest them is located? – and when abroad I go out of my way to mail a postcard home, although I must admit it’s not always easy to find a place that sells stamps and then find out where I could mail the postcard! It would take months to get here, but that’s not the point. Getting a letter of a postcard is simply different from the ding of an incoming text or an inbox full of unread emails. – FJ Torres, Marikina