Protecting, learning from history
WHEN I visited Saigon a few years ago with Tito Mon (+) and Miss Philippines, one of the remarkable places we visited was the city’s Central Post Office. Constructed between 1886 and 1891, the structure’s design was initially credited to renowned architect Gustave Eiffel (Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty), but was actually the labors of another architect of the time, Alfred M. Foulhox.
It is one of the finest examples of French colonial architecture, with Gothic and Renaissance touches. When one steps inside the elegant building, the visitor is greeted with an impressive vaulted ceiling and arched windows framing the looming portait of Uncle Ho at the end. To the right are old fashioned red telephone booths, where international calls are made. There are historical maps of Saigon, when Vietnam was part of French Indochina, and the telegraph line between South Vietnam and Cambodia. The floor is tiled in a romantic floral pattern.
In the age of the internet and email, this post office still works as a snail mail outpost where you can actually buy stamps to put on your envelopes, send postcards to loved ones, as well as receive packages. There are also a number of souvenir shops and kiosks to exchange your foreign currency into the local notes and coins. Mainly, however, it is a museum to relive Saigon’s glorious past.
I mention this because I admired how much the Vietnamese government took care to invest and protect not just this historical structure but many others like it, such as the Notre Dame Basilica, Ben Thanh Market, Saigon Opera House, and so on. This particular attention to their history and culture, and their government’s careful conservation of heritage structures, have made it possible to attract a lot of international tourists, such that in 2019, prior to the pandemic, Vietnam received 18 million visitors. That same year, we welcomed 8.26 million, already an historic feat for the country, viz Vietnam, which still had tourism infrastructure challenges as late as 2010.
(Of course, history and culture go hand in hand with providing visitors very reasonably priced hotel accommodations, food, and other consumer goods. Arriving in Saigon is also pretty smooth; we swept through immigration and got our luggage, and we were out looking for a cab to take us to our hotel in just 30 minutes.)
Meanwhile, in Manila, we are shocked as the Manila Central Post Office, one of the most recognizable national historical landmarks, goes up in flames. Originally designed by architect Juan M. Arellano and Tomas Mapua in the neoclassical line, the Manila Central Post Office was part of the once grand master plan of architect Daniel Hudson Burnham (Flatiron Building in New
York, Union Station in DC) for the city.
The Burnham Plan envisioned a Manila that would have touches of Paris, Venice, and Naples. Unfortunately, World War II broke out and the plan was never completed. The Central Post Office was damaged during the Battle of Manila from February to March 1945; the battle also leveled the walled city of Intramuros. Fortunately, the building was rebuilt in 1946 to its original design, and has remained standing...until that inferno last May 21. What a shame.
In 2012, there were overtures from the Fullerton Group of Singapore to conserve and convert the post office building into a fivestar hotel, much like its posh hotel’s beginnings in the city-state. Then, Postmaster General Josie dela Cruz rued how much the Philippine Postal Corp. had been spending on their utility bills at the building, and preferred to move to smaller building for the agency’s operations. The Department of Finance supposedly headed a committee to review Fullerton’s proposal and turn in its recommendation in six months. Nothing was heard about it since then.
But the National Museum declared the building an “important cultural property” in 2018, recognizing its artistic and historical value. This declaration made it eligible to receive government funds for its preservation and restoration. There were also moves to have the structure be managed by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, instead of being under the Philippine Postal Corp. Again, nothing was heard about these efforts.
Now that the Post Office building’s interiors have been razed to the ground, we hear expressions of frustration from lawmakers and promises from government officials that they would help rebuild the structure. And yet where were they when the building needed to be preserved and retrofitted, which would have equipped it, for one, with a functioning sprinkler system?
What happened to the Manila Central Post Office is not an isolated case. Elsewhere in Manila, the local government has allowed the demoliton of a number of heritage sites and structures to give way to modern conveniences, like the art deco Jai Alai building along Taft Ave., which is now a mini-mall. For another, the national government, specifically the Department of Budget and Management, still refuses to extend additional funds for the Intramuros Administration to be able to insure the artifacts and artwork in its possession.
It often seems like we don’t want to be reminded of our past, glorious or otherwise. We live too much in the present, so government doesn’t prioritize the teaching of history nor the importance of heritage and culture, which is largely relegated to dressing up our school children in native attire during the Buwan ng Wika. I don’t know if this is like a national trauma we developed from having been colonized by other nations, that we’d rather think of the present and just consider what we can accomplish today.
Maybe the burning of the Manila Central Post Office is the wakeup call we need for us to treasure and protect our history. We need to learn the lessons of the past for us to move forward confidently into the future.