Roots
No, not the books, please!
By Marifi Jara
BACK in 2004-2005, several children from our community in Nibaliw Narvarte, San Fabian, some of them my distant relatives, used to come around the house on Saturday afternoons for reading sessions. It was a motley bunch, ranging from kids not yet going to school to as old as grade 6. But everyone enjoyed the activity, spiced by the usual childish bantering and boastings. It did sadden me a bit to see how some of the older ones had quite low reading skills, but at the same time, it delighted me no end to watch how eager everyone was to encounter new places, plots and characters in the stories that we read. It shows that children, when given the opportunity, are inclined to easily develop a love for the written word. (Cheers to the Feed and Read to Lead program in Sta. Barbara!)
We Filipinos are a people generally not big on reading. As a developing country, poverty obviously remains a big factor û books would not fall under the list of our most basic needs. And our culture, too, has a deeply rooted oral tradition. Now add the television, videoke, cellphone and internet factors, and there goes the small chance of books getting its much-deserved attention.
Our local publishing industry, minus the textbooks for schools, remains a very small sector despite our rich pool of great literary writers. In a workshop/training on literature about two years ago, one of the speakers, Mr. Pinoy Penman Jose “Butch” Dalisay Jr., one of our most prominent and prolific writers, lamented how minimal the patronage is for local fiction. And their biggest competition is the imported books by foreign authors. But I am sure that despite that, even our local writers were aghast over the attempt of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to collect taxes and duties for imported books based on an erroneous interpretation of the customs rule- which would have made international bestsellers and most fiction and non-fiction readings that are not within the “educational, scientific, or cultural” category (citing the 1950 Florence Agreement to which the Philippines is a signatory) more expensive. Thank God for the timely intervention of Malacanang, the bizarre policy was withdrawn.
But assuming it was not withdrawn, I could not competently argue on the legal points of the issue, but let me put it this way: Isn’t all reading educational one way or another? Reading introduces us to new ideas, teaches us about other cultures, brings us to worlds that we may never be able to visit, gives us insights on who we are through characters who are somehow the same or very different from us, and makes us more understanding of the world and the people around us. Reading, I believe, makes us more human.
Granted that the intent of our government — particularly the BOC and its boss, the Department of Finance — was to improve revenues. I know we can all think of a hundred and one other products, places and pockets where it can look to fatten up public funds. But no, not the books, please!
Soon I will be going back to Mozambique and one of the things that I will again miss most here is (aside from all the comfort food I grew up with of course) is the availability of books, particularly fiction in the English language. Books here at home (its great how the number of big bookstores in the capital have grown in recent years) are relatively cheaper than in most other countries, sometimes even cheaper than where these books were originally published. I already have three paperbacks ready to be packed, and I am hoping I will be able to fit in more.
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
