Philippine Postal Corporation - History

History

The Philippine postal system has a history spanning over 250 years. In 1767, the first post office in the Philippines was established in the city of Manila, which was later organized under a new postal district of Spain. In 1779, the postal district encompassed Manila and the entire Philippine archipelago. The postal district was reestablished on December 5, 1837. A year later, Manila became known as a leading center of postal services within Asia. Spain joined the Universal Postal Union in 1875, which was announced in the Philippines two years later.

During the Philippine Revolution, President Emilio Aguinaldo ordered the establishment of a postal service to provide postal services to Filipinos. It was later organized as a bureau under the Department of Trade on September 5, 1902, by virtue of Act No. 426, which was passed by the Philippine Commission. The Philippines eventually joined the Universal Postal Union, this time as a sovereign entity, on January 1, 1922.

While the Manila Central Post Office building, the center of Philippine postal services and the headquarters of the then-Bureau of Posts, was completed in its present-day Neo-Classical style in 1926, it was destroyed during World War II. After the war, the Central Post Office was rebuilt in 1946.

With the overhaul of the Philippine bureaucracy in 1987, the Bureau of Posts was renamed the Postal Service Office (PSO) by Executive Order No. 125, issued by President Corazon Aquino on April 13, 1987. It was also that order that placed the PSO under the DOTC. On April 2, 1992, by Republic Act No. 7354 the Postal Service Office became the present-day PhlPost. The law also granted the Philippines Postal Corporation, the authority to reopen the Philippine Postal Savings Bank, which occurred on July 21, 1994 by President Fidel V. Ramos.