“There are so many stories emanating from the corridors of power in the palace beside the murky river Pasig”
Onli in da Pilipins!
The Philippine Postal Corporation was created by law in 1991 to succeed the Postal Services Office under the DOTC (now divided into two departments, one for transportation, the other communications technology) during President Cory Aquino’s time, which in turn changed the then Bureau of Posts, which has a long history spanning 250 years from the time the Spanish colonialists established the first post office.
This writer was the last postmaster-general of the Bureau of Posts and the first head of the Postal Services Office when the title of CEO became assistant secretary of the DOTC.
Later, through the efforts of then senators John Henry Osmena and Mamintal Tamano and Quezon Rep. Bienvenido Marquez, through our initiative, the office became a GOCC and named Philippine Postal Corporation or Philpost with the CEO again called postmaster-general.
Like all GOCCs, policy-making is lodged in a board of directors appointed by the President. But administration and policy implementation is the function of the CEO, which, in the case of Philpost, is the postmaster-general.
Philpost used to be an attached agency to the DICT, later transferred to the Office of the President, mismo!
Little is heard about the postal system nowadays because technology has rendered most of its traditional services obsolete, with text messages substituting for greeting cards that go through the mail, and correspondence going paperless through electronic mail.
Its central office is housed in the iconic building built by national architect Juan Arellano and Tomas Mapua in 1926, destroyed during the Liberation of Manila by the carpet bombing of the Americans, thence rebuilt in 1946 with the Yuchengco construction firm as re-builder.
Until May 22, 2023 when it was mysteriously gutted by fire, it was a national landmark, which drew tourists to its spacious neo-classical lobby and its towering frontage pillars.
Little has since been heard about the efforts to rebuild the historic landmark, except for a few months back when its former water-borne mail receiving building beside the Pasig River was the focal point of the First Lady’s Pasig River Beautification project.
But now Philpost is wracked by a leadership crisis — the unusual and highly irregular case where two men are claiming to be the rightful postmaster-general.
As a GOCC now somehow supervised by the Governance Commission for Government Corporations, members of the board of directors are appointed by the President of the Republic for a term of one year, or as hold-overs until a replacement is named.
Postmaster General Luis Carlos, appointed by Malacanang in April 2023, a month before the big fire gutted the Central Post Office building, was apparently replaced by the Philpost Board of Directors when a new director and Chairman of the Board, former QC councilor Michael Planas was appointed on June 11 by Malacanang.
So Planas is currently Chairman and Postmaster General as far as the current board is concerned.
However, Luis Carlos went to Malacanang and asked to be reinstated.
Whereupon, on July 16, he was given a new appointment as member of the Board from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, with the presidential desire that he be nominated by the board as Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of the corporation.
A “desire” letter is addressed to the board of directors, through its chairman, whereby Malacanang expresses its intent to have the subject member elected to a particular position in the GOCC.
It is the board which then perfects the appointment through a resolution, following the appointing authority’s desire.
Now the entire postal service is thrown into a leadership conundrum — which is the legal PMG and CEO, Planas or Carlos?
The power struggle has affected the operations of the post office and demoralized its employees.
Not only is it bad enough that they are now crammed into the Foreign Service Mail Distribution Center in Port Area while waiting for their landmark building to be rehabilitated.
Worse, they do not know whose orders they are to follow.
Senior officials as well as rank and file could not care less whoever is the “boss,” as long as they know who the boss really is, and they are not entangled in the leadership conflict between Carlos and Planas.
All presidential appointments are coursed through the Office of the Executive Secretary, so how did this confused situation come to pass?
There are so many stories emanating from the corridors of power in the palace beside the murky river Pasig. This is but one of them.
