So, Sen. Tito Sotto’s Senate Bill 1906 or the TRAIN 2 bill that is renamed as “TRABAHO” (Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities) bill so as not to have the stigma of the unpopular TRAIN 1 Law has a provision that seeks to repeal Section 12 of RA 8047 or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995. RA 8047 Sec 12 exempts books, periodicals, and other such printed educational and cultural materials from the expanded-value added tax. Should TRAIN 2 passes, another train wreck will happen, now in the reading culture in the Philippines. “Eh ‘di naman nagbabasa ang ‘Pinoy,” some may say. But the fact that you are reading this essay and the probability of you being a Filipino betrays the very argument uttered above. Yes, we read! Yes, we do! The common misconception in our feudal-oligarchic society is that reading is only for the elite few, for the middle-class who still have time to waste and to escape the daily pressures of life. The argument that Filipinos do not read is so pervasive that slowly it is becoming a reality and here we have a government, who instead of encouraging a paradigm shift in this cultural bias, seems to put more sand to the fire of learning and culture. How reading changed my life It was on a sleepy summer-break afternoon of my 5th grade self that I first reached a book that is not a school requirement. I only got friends from school and my parents work during the day while my siblings always have their own schedule with friends during summer so naturally I am left alone with food to stuff my stomach and a television to stuff (supposedly) my mind. Bored with the noontime shows’ monotonous antics and the solitary confinement I am at, I reached for a book. My siblings’ books are displayed (yes, displayed) at the lowest part of our estante in the sala (ironically, the TV is at its center as if it is the heart of the house). There I found another world. There the silence around me began to be filled with people from far far away or maybe just near near here yet unseen so far. There I have travelled without leaving our home. There I have accompanied someone solve a crime. There, for the first time, I learned what adventure is and how does it feel. With that new discovery, I thought I was unique. And I am wrong.
self with walking home just to buy a book at least once in every six months. My sisters would smile at my innocent joy when sniffing the pages of a new book and this made them buy more or give me money to buy more for me. I thought we were unique. And I was wrong. In college, we have been exposed to STPAULS Librería. After college and after my short stint as a teacher in a senior high, I have to be exposed to it once again. All in all, I’ve been at SM Bicutan, LKK CDO, and Ayala Cebu branches. What I’ve seen during my short stays in these stores is that there is a hunger for the printed word. And mind you, these are religious printed materials. Yes, the demand for it pales in comparison to the demand for religious articles and stuff but there has not been a week that there has been no book sold. One or two a day, regardless it speaks of a spiritual need for the printed word. Also, at the same time, I encountered Fullybooked. This is not just a bookstore; Fullybooked for me is a community. You can seat there, read a book even without buying it first; you can converse with other bibliophiles if you are the outgoing type; and in their main branch you can even sip a cup of coffee or lick an ice cream while reading. I’ve been at their CDO, Cebu, and BGC branches and never have I been the lone customer in the building. And yes, never have I been the only one who looks like whose wallet is full of crumpled fifties or one-hundreds saved after weeks of struggling between life choices and the joy of reading a new book.
I, too, once thought that reading is for the elite and by reading I too becomes one of them but I was wrong. And I love that I am wrong about it. How reading changed the world and the PH The history of printing is very long so I need not elaborate here too much or else I’ll just bore you and you’ll never reach the end of this essay especially that of my main point. So here is a sketch of how reading and printing changed the course of human history (just research about them if you are interested):
Why we don’t read Given all these, you’ll still ask, “Why are we not reading?” For me there are two reasons, that SB no. 1906, instead of extinguishing, will just encourage more.
Conclusion
Regardless of these obstacles, according to the latest survey (2012; ohhh so long ago) by the National Book Development Board of the Philippines, 88% of us are readers (see http://booksphilippines.gov.ph/2012-readership-survey-highlights/). And I have seen with my own eyes that Filipinos regardless of age do read. Someone once told me that Filipinos do read but they only read what they want to read. So, if we continue feeding ourselves lies then we would hunger for more lies. And taxing books and other printed media will really help this trick. But if we are committed to the truth then we should feed ourselves with those that can sharpen the criticality of our minds. Books, my dear friends, might not all contain the Truth. In fact, they can contradict each other too. But at least they teach us one thing: have a critical mind. What we should do is promote reading more; lower books’ prices if it can be; help our people who are physically and financially unable to own a book either because they are far from cities or because they simply don’t have enough even for their own food. Books are necessities in a free society. As we fill our hungry stomachs, we should also fill our hungry minds and imaginations. The two goes hand-in-hand. Thomas Aquinas would say, “Eat first then philosophize” with which Karl Marx would add, “You cannot think with a hungry stomach.” But with a society who punishes the hungry because of his hunger, what can the boy who longs for a book do? |
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"The absolutely other is the Other" Archives
September 2018
"There is only one corner in the universe that you can be certain of improving and that's your own Self" |