LAST MAN STANDING. The 48-year-old Mr. Postman statue of the fire-razed Manila Central Post Office in Liwasang Bonifacio seems to guard whatever valuables are left inside the neoclassical building on May 23, 2023. Postmaster General Luis Carlos on Wednesday (May 8, 2024) said the detailed architectural and engineering design would be completed by July and the target completion is in two years as it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2026. (PNA photo by Joan Bondoc)
MANILA – The Philippine Postal Corporation (PHLPost) is coming up with a new alphanumeric zip code composed of two letters and five numbers to ease the delivery of parcels nationwide.
Postmaster General and chief executive officer Luis Carlos said Wednesday it would replace the old zip code which is composed of only four digits.
“The first two letters would be the 82 provinces and the next two numbers would be for the municipalities or cities of the 1, 600 municipalities or cities, and the last three numbers will be the 4,200 barangays,” he said in a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon interview.
“So the delivery is a bit granualized, we will know already what barangay you would be in.”
Carlos said the new zip code is rolled out internally first and implemented by June “once the sorting scheme for the letter sorting machine in the PhilPost is completed”.
The new zip code is one of the three legacy programs that the PHLPost is working on, he added.
The agency is also developing the Kartero App which is similar to private courier or e-commerce mobile applications and establishing partnerships with barangay postal stations for deliveries.
Carlos said the Kartero app aims to eliminate the use of paper for proof of delivery while the partnership aims to engage the local government units in providing services to customers in islands or far-flung areas in exchange for commission or incentive.
Text scams, postal ID
Carlos said the PHLPost has no capability to look into where the text scams are coming from but it has requested assistance from the National Telecommunications Commission and telecom firms to filter such messages as spam.
It does not send any text messages to the customers regarding their parcels, he added.
“We send a notice if the items are with Customs, or we send an express mail service, it depends, if you can use express mail service, pinadadala lang naman iyan (that is sent), door to door,” he said.
“Now if you have issues regarding taxes, dun lang naman naiiwan iyan (that’s the time it is not delivered), that’s the time only we send notices to them in a piece of paper.”
To trace the status of a parcel delivery, Carlos advised the public to use the service tracking numbers in the PHLPost website.
As regards the issuance of postal IDs which was suspended since March 2023, the PHLPost is looking forward to its resumption by July this year.
“We’re bidding it out again, and it’s on public bid right now, so that we'll finish hopefully by the end of June, and then we can start issuing the postal ID again,” Carlos said. (PNA)
