Despite Delays, PhilPost Claims Delivery at Intl Standards
The finances of state-owned Philippine Postal Corp. continued to deteriorate last year, posting a net loss of P199 million, up 342 percent from only P45 million in 2000.
Philpost attributed this to a decline in revenues — from P3.429 billion to P3.411 billion — and the escalation of operating expenditures, particularly on transportation services for both domestic and international mails.
Despite Philpost’s modernization efforts, the company is still swamped with complaints from customers about mail that arrive late or those that are not delivered at all.
But Philpost claims its mail delivery performance remains within acceptable international standards.
According to an airmail quality of service test conducted in July 2001, the Philippines, as a country of origin, spends an average of 3.20 days or 76.80 hours to dispatch mail from the time of its posting.
On the other hand, it takes an average of 6.21 days or 149.04 hours for mail to be delivered to its recipient in the Philippines from the time of its posting in its country of origin.
“The end-to-end delivery results do not necessarily show any significant improvements in delivery performances. On the other hand, it would reiterate the need to improve our operational capabilities in the areas of mail processing and delivery,” the report admitted.
An official who asked not to be named said Philpost has set up a unit to handle customer complaints. “If a complaint is not resolved at that level, that’s when (the) operations (department) comes in,” she added.
Philpost’s mail volumes are also on a downtrend, pushed by the tremendous popularity of high-tech and convenient forms of communication like texting and email.
Total mail volume dropped 16.6 percent to 204 million last year from 246 million in 2000.
“Competition from private messengerial services also greatly contributed to the reduction in mail volume which, in effect, reduced revenues. The anthrax scare also accounted for the drop,” the report said.
The official said the company’s revenues now come mostly from bulk mail. “We don’t depend on individual mail anymore.”
It also said had the government granted Philpost’s request for a reimbursement of “franked” mail and missionary costs amounting to P214 million and P223 million in 2000 and 2001, respectively, the company could have posted a net profit.
Franked mails are official letters that are delivered free of charge. This privilege is given to government institutions like Congress.
Philpost has continued rationalizing its subsidiaries. Philippine Postal Savings Bank Inc. recorded an operating income of P138.7 million, up 7 percent from the previous year while its resources grew 25 percentto P1.65 billion from P1.32 billion.
Philpost Leasing and Financing Corp. has been operating with an increased deficit of P534 million but was able to pay P68 million in outstanding loans to various creditor banks.
Golden Kris Security and General Services Inc., which handles 206 security guards, generated a net income of P346,000.
Provident Fund Office had a total of 12,806 active members. Around 6,500 availed of multipurpose loans amounting to P234 million. Total collections reached P123 million.
