REMNANTS OF A LANDMARK | A drone shot taken on Monday afternoon shows smoke
billowing from the Manila Central Post Office as firefighters continue to put out the blaze
that started on Sunday night. Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna assures heritage advocates that no
commercial development will be allowed on the Post Office site, an “institutional zone.”
(Photo by GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — Citing the local zoning ordinance, Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna allayed fears that a new structure would rise in place of the Manila Central Post Office (MCPO) after a fire that began on Sunday night and raged for more than 30 hours gutted the prewar landmark to the shock and distress of heritage advocates
.“To those who have apprehensions that another structure will be built on the Manila Central Post Office site, don’t worry. The site where the post office is built, according to our zoning ordinance, is an institutional zone,” she said in a briefing on Monday.
According to the land use guidelines set by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, general institutional zones are intended for government offices, schools, hospitals or clinics, as well as for academic, research and convention centers.
The city’s zoning ordinance protects the MCPO from any attempt by the local or national government to construct just any structure in the area, the mayor added.
Lacuna recalled that in 2018, the National Museum also declared the post office building an “important cultural property,” a status given to structures with “exceptional cultural, artistic and historical significance to the Philippines.”
“In this case, no other structure can be built where the post office now stands,’’ she said.
In separate statements, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) assured the Philippine Postal Corp. (PPC)—the company running the MCPO—of their help in rehabilitating the property.
“The NHCP, in collaboration with local and national agencies, expresses its commitment to help [PPC], in any way, to rehabilitate the damaged edifice,” the NHCP said.
The NCCA said it would extend help not only in the rehabilitation and repair of the post office, but also in resuming the normal operations of PPC.
Services relocated
Meanwhile, Postmaster General Luis Carlos said PPC’s mail and parcel operations were able to resume on Tuesday.
Speaking at the Laging Handa briefing, Carlos said MCPO operations were temporarily moved to the Foreign Surface Mail Exchange Center in Delpan at Manila’s Port Area. Letter carriers from the MCPO, including those in charge of the distribution of the national IDs, have been relocated to that site, he added.
For Manila residents, PPC mail stations remained open in the Ermita and Tondo districts.
Mail services are being accepted and processed in the Central Mail Exchange Center (CMEC) Ninoy Aquino International Airport complex in Pasay City. PPC corporate offices were also transferred to CMEC.
Carlos also reported that among the sections destroyed in the fire was the philately section, which included the stamp shop, museum and library that houses one of the country’s most extensive collection of rare and valuable Philippine and foreign stamps, some dating back to the Spanish and American colonial eras.
There was no immediate estimate of the value of the stamps lost.
As to the overall damage on the entire structure, Carlos cited initial figures given by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) at P300 million to P500 million.
Representatives of the Government Service Insurance System and an appraising company have gone to the building to make preliminary assessments for insurance purposes, he added.
‘Nothing is left’
After more than 30 hours, the MCPO fire was declared out on Tuesday morning.
“Nothing is left. Everything is gone from the basement all the way up [to the fifth floor],” Carlos said in an interview on CNN Philippines. “All that’s left were the ionic columns at the building’s facade. But hopefully, we can preserve a few things.” “The structure was still there but the ceiling had fallen down,” he added.
The BFP said at least 17 firefighters (one of them a volunteer) sustained injuries—from lacerations to first-degree burns—during the fire that broke out past 11 p.m. on Sunday and was put out at 6:33 a.m. on Tuesday. A teenage girl was also reported hurt.
Chief Supt. Nahum Tarroza, the BFP regional director for Metro Manila, said also among the valuable items destroyed were the narra and molave hardwood fixtures in the interior of the building, as well as other “antique” items.
The fire was so intense that at least six PPC service vehicles “melted” while parked several meters away from the burning building, he added. About 80 firetrucks rushed to the site, but “the fire is contained in a confined space; it was like putting out the fire of a burning furnace using a syringe.”
According to Tarroza, the fire started at the General Services Office in the basement.
“But we cannot yet speculate about the real cause of the fire,” he said in a dzBB interview on Tuesday. “Materials from the upper floors all came falling down, forming a mountain-like [pile of fuel for the fire starting] in the basement. We had to go there, all the way down and manually pump in water.’’