MANILA — Sen. Robin Padilla on Monday called on the Senate to investigate the fire that engulfed the Manila Central Post Office last Sunday, as he pressed for better "policies for the preservation and protection of cultural properties."

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"This recent incident underscores the vulnerability of our national cultural heritage to fire and other hazards and highlights the urgent need to revisit and assess the effectiveness of existing preservation and protection measures," Padilla said in his resolution.

Padilla described the incident as "a blow to the country's cultural heritage."

"The Manila Central Post Office is a tangible representation of the nation's culture and history, and its damage is a blow to the country's cultural heritage," he said.

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"It is of public interest to provide policies that will prevent or mitigate the effect of fire and other hazards to protect and preserve our national cultural heritage," he added.

Built in 1926, the Manila Central Post Office building is an iconic neo-classical building designed in 1926 by American architects Ralph Doane and Tomas Mapua, and Filipino architect Juan Marcos de Guzman Arellano.

In 2018, the Manila Post Office building was declared an "important cultural property."

Sen. Loren Legarda meanwhile called on authorities to investigate and make sure similar incidents "will never happen again."

"I call on our authorities to investigate the cause of the fire so that this occurrence will never happen again. We must protect our historical sites such as this significant architectural heritage," she said.

Before the fire incident, the decades-old structure still provided postal services besides operating a museum.

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