Post Office Not For Sale

..Is there a master heritage, historical plan to refurbish Manila's iconic, neo-classical buildings to bring back the old glory of the city once dubbed as the "Pearl of the Orient?" The question came up during a public hearing yesterday by the Senate Education, Arts and Culture Committee chaired by Sen. Edgardo J. Angara who has filed a Senate resolution seeking to inquire into reports that there is an ongoing negotiation between the Philippine government and a Hong Kong company to sell the Philippine Post Office building and convert it into a hotel. These buildings - designed by Daniel Burnham, an American, at the start of the 1900s and executed in 1926 by Filipino architect Juan Arellano - include the Philippine Post Office, Metropolitan Theater, Supreme Court, two National Museum structures that used to house the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Philippine Congress, and the Department of Tourism (DOT). The University of the Philippines (UP) said these clusters of pre-World War II buildings along Taft Avenue were created as a ceremonial access from Padre Faura to Liwasang Bonifacio of which the Philippine Post (PhilPost) Office is at the northern terminus of the processional avenue. ..