The sad fate of the iconic Post Office building

FILIPINOS worldwide were dismayed to learn about the massive fire that gutted the Manila Central Post Office building, a 97-year-old structure considered to be an architectural treasure and declared as an “Important Cultural Property” by the

National Museum of the Philippines in November 2018. It was similarly heartbreaking to watch videos of the burning building which took 80 firetrucks and 30 hours before the firemen declared a “fire out” – with damage initially estimated at P300 million.

News about the fire was carried in the United States by the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles

Times and other media because the building carries a significant place in the relationship and shared history of the United States and the Philippines.

Designed in the neoclassical style by Filipino architects Juan M. Arellano and Tomas Mapua (who were both sent to the United States as pensionados or scholars under the 1903 Pensionado Act of the Philippine

Commission) and American architect Ralph Doane (who was appointed as consulting architect to the Philippine government in 1916), the Manila Central Post Office became a fierce combat zone during the Battle of Manila in 1945.

According to an account by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Japanese forces were using the “earthquake- proof and heavily reinforced concrete” building that was “practically impervious to direct artillery, tank, and tank destroyer fire” as a garrison – forcing American soldiers to “enter the building and engage the Japanese in roomto-room combat.”

The Japanese were initially able to repel the American forces because the rooms and corridors have been heavily barricaded with sandbags and barbed wire. But on Feb. 22, 1945 the Americans “managed to enter the building through a second story window and eliminated the Japanese who retreated to the Post Office’s large, dark basement,” the NHCP account went.

The war severely damaged the iconic building due to heavy bombardment, but it was restored a year later

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