Panglao postal woes resolved

After almost a year without  rendering postal services, the Panglao Postal Office, desperately seeking an office space for their postal operations- is now faced with two choices for an office – a room in the Panglao Municipal Hall  or a spanking  one soon to be constructed building right at the heart of the Tawala tourist business district.

Panglao Mayor Benedicto Alcala and the Panglao Business Club (PBC) headed by Leocadia “Uca” Trotin Resos offered their respective sites to the Post Office after residents of Panglao raised a howl condemning Alcala’s move not to allow the Post Office to return to their former office.

But contrary to the claims of the residents, Alcala said that a room has been ready for occupancy by the postal office but local postal authorities never bothered to check with his office.

PBC President Uca Resos realizing the growing clamor for the return of mail services to Panglao offered a twenty square meter lot strategically located near a bank and several business establisments in Barangay Tawala, Panglao even as Alcala responded to the appeal of Governor Edgar Chatto for a space for the Postal Office in the municipal hall.

Mrs. Resos together and the PBC took the cudgels for a frustrated community especially the foreign residents and made the initial offer to make available to postal authorities a lot and building owned by the family of Paz Trotin, the mother of Uca Resos.

The PBC, an agggrupation of young businessmen who are scions of leading tourism businessmen – Witte, Dumalo-an, Montero has been in the forefront to transform Panglao into a model tourist destination and a haven for business opportunities.

Paz Trotin, considered one of the pioneers of the tourism business in Panglao offered to shoulder even the cost for the construction of a post office building.

UNDELIVERED MAIL

Concerned residents of Panglao showed the Chronicle stacks of mail lying undelivered including letters from the office of Congressman Rene Relampagos addressed to his constituents that was part of several bundles of maill allegedly “dumped” into the laps of grumbling barangay officials of Danao by mail carriers  desperately seeking assistance in the face of the continued closure of the Panglao Post Office.

Panglao residents affected by the snail paced delivery of their mail told the Chronicle that since September, 2011 their mails were found strewn in a corner of the Danao barangay Hall.

Danao Barangay Captain Necito Liquit told the Chronicle that the letters placed in plastic bags were delivered by postal employees requesting them to inform residents that their are mail matters in the barangay hall.

“Mihangyo ang taga post office nga among i-deliver apan mibalibad ko kay dili na among trabajo”(I refused to deliver the mail as requested because that is not our job).

Liquit said that addressees inadvertently knew about the presence of the mail during one of their visits to the barangay hall to pay their barangay fees.

A FIRST IN BOHOL

A first in the postal history in Bohol that an LGU could not be served by a post office –  the mail delivery has been severely disrupted after Alcala ordered the local post office to vacate their office ostensibly for renovation purposes.

But after almost 10 months since March 25, 2011 when the order was handed down, Alcala admitted that no renovation was undertaken since operations in the treasurer’s office would be drastically affected as it was also included in the renovation plans.

“I am just awaiting for the operations of the treasurer’s office to wind down”. Alcala told the Chronicle in the vernacular adding that “I could not allow services to be disrupted especially that a new mode of computerized tax payment was being readied for implementation this year”.

Another room in the municipal hall has been ready for the postal office but “it seems the postal authorities was not interested because they never approached me”.

But postal authorities led by Bernardo S. Margate, Postal District Inspector for Bohol claimed that they never received  any communication from Alcala about the status of their former office while the offer of PBC was considered and an ocular inspection was conducted on the site.

Chatto said that Postal authorities showed their preference for a post office located in the Tawala area where the bulk of the business establishment are located

When informed about the offer of the PBC, Alcala quipped “I hope Paz Trotin, this time makes good her word about the lot donation. I’ve heard that she has been making a lot of offers for donation that didn’t push through”.

The foremost concern of the residents of Panglao is the immediate return of mail services to their municipality.Allowing the post office to temporarily use the vacant room offered by Alcala in the municipal hall while awaiting for the necesarry documents to be signed between Paz Trotin and the Philippine Postal Authority and the eventual construction of the new building in Barangay Tawala is seen as the solution to the postal woes of Panglao.(CMV)