A lot of people are excited about Pope Francis coming to the Philippines and the Philippine Postal Corp. (PHLPost) is on the frontlines.
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“PHLPost is issuing special stamps to celebrate the papal visit in January 2015, but first, it is seeking public participation in the design,” reports Beverly Natividad on InterAksyon.com.
Postmaster General Josie dela Cruz said PHLPost will hold an on-the-spot stamp design contest on Oct 11.
“The top four winners (of the on-the-spot design contest) will be the official design of the stamps in honor of his visiting the Philippines,” explained Dela Cruz.
The report revealed, “The agency expects to print some 150,000 such special stamps for Pope Francis’s visit, or more than the usual 100,000 as in previous similar projects, because they expect a huge demand for these stamps, considering this Pope’s popularity.”
The report added that “while the stamp’s designs will be crowd-sourced, the souvenir sheet—the envelope in which the special stamps will be placed—already has a design.”
PHLPost likewise said that the “the First Day Cover (the bigger envelope that is considered a collectible because it is sold only during the launch) will be designed with a special coinage stamp with metallic foil.” This is significant because they don’t usually do this just for any event.
The Stamp Committee still hasn’t decided on the price of the Pope Francis stamps.
The report noted: “This will be the second Pope Francis stamp in the country. In April this year during the anniversary of his election as Pope, PHLPost also printed special stamps featuring the Pope’s image. PHLPost partnered with the Vatican Post in the design and printing of this earlier stamp.”
Aside from the design contest, PHLPost is also “asking young people to write letters to the Pope, which it promises to deliver to His Holiness when he comes to Manila.” PHLPost will be installing mail boxes for this purpose.
For more details on the an on-the-spot stamp design contest, get in touch will PHLPost.
Screengrab of image from PHLPost (April 2014 Pope Francis stamp)
