MANILA -  A lawmaker on Monday challenged the state-owned Philippine Postal Corp. (Philpost) to aggressively engage in the remittance trade and install Internet cafés in order to stay competitive and viable.

"The advent of modern and instant communication technologies such as mobile telephone text-messaging and electronic mail threatens to make the post office irrelevant," said Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Communications Technology.

He added: "Advanced communication technologies have already killed the telegraph business. If Philpost wants to keep on making money and stay fully functional, it should play a part in new emerging markets."

Santiago, former chief of National Telecommunications Commission, said Philpost’s snail mail service, both for domestic and foreign parcels, is also under attack from highly efficient privately run express courier firms.

The congressman said Philpost is in a "superb position" to quickly seize market share in the lucrative remittance trade because of its existing "money order" service. He said Filipinos in the countryside as well as those without bank accounts still patronize money orders,.

"The remittance market is large and still rapidly growing. Even a small bite would be huge. If Philpost can offer low-priced remittance services, it can easily build market share," Santiago said.

"The same is true with Internet shops. The potential market is there because many Filipinos still do not own personal computers and/or have limited Internet access at home or in the office," he added.

The Postal Service Act of 1992 established Philpost to build up the country’s postal system.

A government-owned corporation, Philpost is governed by a seven-member board led by the Postmaster General, who is also chief executive officer.

Philpost has more than 2,000 post offices, distribution hubs and mailing outlets countrywide. It has over 18,000 employees and 2,500 delivery vans and motorcycles.