What really is the thing with this undeliverable mail addresses in the island? I come from a third world country like the Philippines, but one thing you can be sure of is that this “undeliverable mail addresses” is practically unheard of. You can bet your last dollar that the mail person will sooner or later get your letter to your far flung address.
But where are these undeliverable addresses I am talking about? I recently recalled this ridiculous situation when this fella who had a set appointment with me had to profusely apologize for being 30 minutes late as according to him, he got stuck at the Tamuning post office since his address happens to be among those condos that are “undeliverables.” So I asked him how he gets his mail if his address is undeliverable. According to him, he has to drop by his PO Box which he pays for and he actually has to sneak out of his office to drop by the post office and spend more time if he happens to have any registered mail or package.
Why so is the situation in the island like this? I am just dying of envy when I saw the situation of some relatives at the East Coast wherein the mail man practically does everything for them, from point of pick up (residence) to delivery of mail and parcels back to their residence. They seldom have to drop by the post office. Now that is what I call no nonsense honest to goodness postal service!
The question is, why can’t we have that in the island? Why all these undeliverable addresses that at times even causes a bottle neck of cars and clients at the post office, when at times a lot of the Guamanians collectively troop to the post office?
I do understand that the postal operations is a federal affair, but then again, if our legislators and the political leadership would really want to provide to us the postal service we deserve, certainly they can think of an innovative or creative way to solve the problem.
I certainly, have mucho-mucho fate in the abilities of our legislators and the current political leadership. We have seen how creative they have been in their retroactive (selective) self-serving wage increases. They certainly are a bunch of able and capable leaders, just how fortunate can we get!!!
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I noticed that this paper’s maiden issue did not have the usual message/greetings from the Governor’s and Lt. Governor’s office. I did see the greetings/message from the office of our beloved Philippine Consul General De Borja. I was a bit alarmed as these messages are your usual run of the mill courtesies sought by the requesting party(s) on their countless events and they are indeed liberally extended to by the concerned officials.
What initially, came to mind was, could our publisher not even have the better sense to request for such a message from the two highest political leaders in the island?! It turns out that she had indeed sent formal written requests and duly received by the concerned offices. Likewise, she had also sent follow-up emails, but unfortunately as it appears, this paper’s requests were apparently ignored (or snubbed would be a more appropriate term) the request.
At any rate, I do understand that the concerned officials are under no obligation to provide a message. It’s just that I very often see the messages and/or joint message of these two top officials in numerous souvenir programs, etc, and to think that requests of this sort are certainly handled by one of among the numerous capable and able staff members of these officials.
Well anyway, that’s life in Guam under the Calvo—Ternorio leadership. As they sometimes say, the air is different when you’re up-up there!
