Signed, sealed, delivered

MANILA, Philippines - It’s no longer just a little square of paper at the upper corner of an envelope that gets your letter to its recipient. Excitement is brewing in the philatelic world about the release of new stamp designs by the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhlPost) – stamps that not only look good, but feel and smell good, too.

Postmaster general Josefina dela Cruz says the new and unique stamps are intended to capture the attention not only of philatelists, but the general public as well.

To be released this August, in time for the commemoration of the fifth death anniversary of former President Cory Aquino, are four scented stamps featuring the paintings of the first woman leader of the country. President Cory took an active interest in painting after her presidency and one of her favorite subjects was flowers.

The stamps were supposed to have been released last January in time for her birthday, but at first the family did not want to part with her paintings.

 â€œThe postal rule is that if we put it in a stamp, it must be donated to us because the value of the commercial painting would go up once it has been featured as a stamp…But finally, there was an accommodation since we were not going to sell Cory’s paintings,” dela Cruz explains.

PhlPost marketing and management support services manager Eric Tagle says the fragrance on the stamp could last for years depending on how it would be preserved.

Another print to watch out for this year would be the four watchtower or lighthouse stamps embedded with grains of sand. These lighthouse stamps are one of four topical-themed stamps that would be made available beginning this quarter, the others being summer destinations, festival masks and aquatic plants.

Textiles in stamps will be introduced in May for Filipino Heritage Month. Traditional Filipino textiles will include the colorful weave of the Ifugao.

This year is turning out to be an exciting time for PhlPost. “People are starting to talk about us, starting to notice us. Before it was thought that PhlPost was obsolete, dead because nobody was mailing letters anymore. But lately there has been a lot of media coverage on our services and our stamps, and I think it helps us get back to the consciousness of the Filipino people. We are trying to reinvent ourselves,” dela Cruz says.

Their target is not only to be relevant in the Philippine market, but for the stamps to be recognized worldwide. “We want to promote philately. We hope to enter the international philatelic market because it is depressing that whenever we attend stamp exhibitions in other countries, only few people notice our stamps.”

 While some of the postage prints would be produced locally, others would have to be printed by Thai British Printer, a company based in Thailand that has the technology to do their designs.

She hopes that more Filipinos would develop a love for stamps. “(Stamp collecting) is very interesting . There is so much history. There is so much to learn from stamps. If you are a lover of history, you would learn a lot of things. In fact, before a stamp is approved it gets cleared first by the National Historical Institute of the Philippines” so that the details are accurate.

Dela Cruz, who has been PhlPost head since July 2011, has long had a genuine love for these small prints of art. The love for stamps was encouraged by her mother Iluminada, a public school teacher.

 â€œMy mother taught Grade 4 for 27 years and she required her students to bring stamps every year, some even bought new stamps. So you could imagine how many stamps I had. The stamps back then were beautiful… Stamps became my introduction to geography and history. There were countries featured in those stamps that now no longer exist,” dela Cruz says.

As early as Grade 2 she would look up in the encyclopedia the people and places featured in the stamps.

PhlPost is breaking tradition and their first experiment was to come out last year with a triangular format for the Philippine Marine Biodiversity stamp that featured eight marine species.

The second experiment was the glow in the dark “Parks for a Nation” stamp that was released in January to commemorate 50 years of the National Park Development Committee. Even in the dark, one could see the fireworks and water fountain images in the stamp.

On Jan. 30, PHLPost issued its first ever three-dimension (3D) gold-foil embossed stamp featuring the Year of the Horse in time for the start of the Lunar New Year. 

Last month, PhlPost put out an embossed stamp honoring Megan Young, the first Filipina to bag the Ms. World crown.

“This stamp should be used because it could be used to promote the Philippines,” says dela Cruz.

 For March and April, they are lining up two stamps bearing the images of three pontiffs. “These two stamps are expected to be sold out because the Philippines is a Catholic country so there is a big demand,” she predicts.

 For March, PhlPost will have a joint issue with the Vatican Postal Office for The Vatican City 2014 that would feature the incumbent head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Vatican Post would also produce a stamp using the same design. The joint issue stamps would be released on the same day.

 â€œWe are arranging to present the stamp to the Pope when we go to Rome during Holy Week. This would coincide with our corridor marketing tour,” Dela Cruz says.

To mark the canonization of the previous pontiffs, they would also issue stamps in se-tenant format of Pope John Paul II, who is well loved by Filipino Catholics, and Pope John XXIII. The plan is to have them in 3D, embossed and in gold leaf because it would be a collector’s item.

Just recently, PhlPost launched the personalized stamp. This summer, they will set up photo booths in major international airports and four top tourist destinations – Baguio, Bohol, Palawan and Boracay – to capture pictures of foreign and local tourists and turn them into postage stamps.

Fragrant stamps, glow-in-the-dark stamps, “selfie” stamps... what’s next for PhlPost?

Why not a stamp that tastes good? “If there are edible roses then why not an edible stamp?” Dela Cruz muses.