A Personal Trivia on Stamps Collection

Rowland Hill is credited for inventing the modern postage stamp system which is still very much in use to this day albeit at a very much reduced frequency because of the advent of electronic and virtual platforms of communication.

I started my interest in philately in my college days first at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran and then at the Lyceum of the Philippines in Intramuros, Manila from 1984 to 1988. These universities in the walled city are just a stone’s throw away from the nearby Manila Central Post Office (MCPO) at Plaza Lawton, Manila. Before, I regularly visited the MCPO to check on the issuance of the latest commemorative stamps. But my journey to the world of stamp collecting started earlier in 1978. A relative, Belen Macawili (+), then an employee at the National Bookstore, gifted our family with a colorful book on stamp collecting titled “United States Stamps & Stories: The Exciting Saga of US History Told in Stamps” published by Scott Publishing in 1974 for the United States Postal Services (USPS).

Its glossy and colorful pages filled with illustrations of stamps and the historical foundations for its issuance made it an interesting read. Said book helped me a lot in my Social Studies and History classes in high school as well as in college. It really gave me a historical perspective on the life of Buffalo Bill Cody and the Pony Express which pioneered the US Postal Service, among others.

Unfortunately, my zest in stamp collecting was doused when I graduated from college in 1988 because of the need to concentrate with work and the need to pursue further studies leading to my Bachelor’s Degree in Law at the Far Eastern University also in Manila. After 21 years, I suddenly got the urge to resume my stamp collecting and I am now slowly building my stamp collection focused on Philippine-issued or Philippine-related stamps. It is a hobby I intend to keep.

On the 09 May 2022 Presidential Election

(A stamp issued by the Philippine Postal Corporation in 2001 bearing the seal of the President of the Republic of the Philippines)

There are now six contenders for the Philippine presidency. Whoever wins in 2022, he or she should have the character, competence and courage to be the leader of the country. He or she should be a leader who can unify the country unlike the present man at the helm who has failed to live up to his oath of office and whose accomplishment so far in his six-year term is to polarize the Filipino nation to the extreme.

Unlike in other jurisdictions, like the U.S. where democrat and republican supporters remain at odds even after the election, in the Philippines, the supporters of different political parties, after the election, generally let go of their differences and resume their harmonious neighborly relations; but that did not happen under the present administration of Rodrigo Duterte who himself is fomenting civil unrest by his vindictiveness against those who contradict him or those who do not share his view on how to run the government.

On Civil Rights

“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., dissenting opinion (United States v. Schwimmer [1929])

It’s Human Rights Day!

“Advocating human rights does not make one anti-government or anti-establishment. It’s upholding the Constitution.”

On Cooperative Success

“The success of a cooperative enterprise should not be gauged based on the asset or member size but by the difference the cooperative makes on the lives of its members and the community.”