Postal agency to buy 133 more mail delivery vans

DAVAO CITY—In a bid to speed up further its mail delivery system, Philippine Postal Corp. (PhilPost) has allotted P100 million for the purchase of 133 more delivery vans fitted with GPS (global positioning system).

PhilPost also came up with a mail tracking system and SMS notification that provide updates of delivery to its clients in line with its boosted express services, Postmaster General Josie dela Cruz said during a visit here last week.

Dela Cruz said the agency’s efforts aimed at increasing its share to about 5 percent of the P30-billion courier service market, which is now dominated by private companies such as LBC and To Go.

This, she said, would effectively raise PhilPost revenue to P1.5 billion in the next two years. Last year, the state-run courier service ranked only 8th among the courier service companies in the country and made P640 million, mostly from express mail delivery service.

Dela Cruz expressed optimism that PhilPost would hit its target because it had been growing at an average of 3 percent.

It has also allotted P1.7 billion for development in terms of connectivity and infrastructure to boost services, she said.

Amid the Internet revolution, courier service remains a lucrative business. “Delivery service is here to stay because you can’t e-mail the goods,” Dela Cruz said.

For international destinations, PhilPost has partnered with Universal Postal Union and entered into 45 bilateral agreements with 45 countries for the reciprocal exchange of express mail service items, Luis Carleen of PhilPost marketing and management support said.

It also overhauled its postal money order service by doing away with the paper-based system. Under the electronic postal money order system, sending or receiving money would not take long these days, Dela Cruz said.

And it’s cheaper with PhilPost, too, at a flat rate of only P1 for domestic money transfers, she said.

“Like sports, you have to have speed, but in order to achieve there is a need to nurture the value of discipline to maintain speed in mail service delivery,” she told postal workers here. Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao