Students can write letter to Pope for free — Philpost

The Philippine Postal Corporation (Philpost) opened a Letter to the Pope campaign to drumbeat public awareness on Pope Francis’ upcoming visit and as part of its bid to revive letter writing among the youth.

Philpost encourages students to write Pope Francis by offering their postal services for free. Elementary and high school students in private and public schools to send a handwritten letter to the Pope using the regular letter format which consists of the addressee, date, salutation, body of the letter and the sender or signature.

According to Nathaniel Inguing, post master of the Mandaue Central Post Office, teaching students to write formal letters is important in developing the written communication skills of students.

He said that because of the social media and the rapid advancement in electronic mobile gadgets, most of the youth can no longer construct a letter and clueless on how to use the services of the post office.

The Philpost campaign, he added is also in consonance to the call  Roman Catholic Church leaders for the youth to communicate with the Pope.

Letter writers may express anything they want to tell the Pope, may it be a greeting, expression of gratitude, a request or a prayer on a piece of paper in English.  The envelope must bear the sender’s name, address and school and the addressee shall be the word “Letter to the Pope”.

They can drop their letter to any Philpost offices nationwide without a fee for the postal stamp.

“This is basically to bring to the Pope the sentiments of the youth as suggested by Church leaders and one way also of educating our students who no longer were aware of the format of writing and sending a letter,” Inguing said.

While Philpost is not offering any prize in the Letter to the Pope campaign, a response from the Pope may be worth the wait and who knows what the Vatican will have for the letter senders. Deadline for the Letter to the Pope is on December 5, 2014.

Aside from this project, they also have an existing project dubbed as “Salamat Po”, also a letter writing contest open to elementary and high school students. In this contest, students send a letter to the Philpost, and each letter qualifies for a raffle entry. Regional raffle draw will be on Dec. 9, with the lucky letter writer winning P5,000. The grand grand draw is set next year, with the winner garnering P30,000. No definite date for the draw next year has been set by Philpost.

Meanwhile, to make itself relevant in the digital age, the Philpost has introduced innovations in their operations. In Mandaue City, the post office is already accepting payments for the Metropolitan Cebu Water District, Visayan Electric Company, Philhealth, PLDT and Sky Cable.

For their main service, Inguing said that letters and packages sent through the post office are faster and safer. The Philpost now has a system to prevent theft in the packages and letters.