NBDB condemns attacks on bookstores
THE National Book Development Board (NBDB) along with Filipino writers and academics condemned the recent vandalism and red-tagging of two independent bookstores in Metro Manila.
Earlier this week, the storefronts of Popular Bookstore in Tomas Morato, Quezon City and Solidaridad Bookshop in Padre Faura, Manila were defaced with anti-communist graffiti, accusing them of being a front of the New People’s Army, the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
The NBDB described the incident as “an attack on institutions of knowledge and harmful to the democratic values that we, along with the rest of the government, are bound by duty to protect.”
The Solidaridad Bookshop was owned by F. Sionil Jose, and the NBDB said that the act was a gross disrespect to the memory of the late National Artist for Literature.
“These vile acts are detrimental not just to the two independent bookstores that are fighting hard to stay afloat in this pandemic, but to the whole Philippine book publishing industry. This does not fare well at all since our country has a very low bookshop per population size ratio,” the NBDB said in a statement.
The NBDB was created through Republic Act 8047, also known as the “Book Publishing Industry Development Act” to formulate and implement a national book policy with a corresponding national book development plan geared toward the development of the book publishing industry.
“We stand in solidarity with bookstores, content creators, publishers, industry workers, readers, and all sectors of the publishing community in condemning these acts and call for vigilance in protecting our shared advocacies — literacy, critical thinking and democracy,” it added.
In a related development, the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) issued a statement urging the authorities to stop red tagging.
“People should feel safe going to the bookstore, and they should not have their freedom to avail themselves of the literature of their choosing curtailed in any way. These businesses should not be threatened, nor should the people they employ,” the MCC statement read.
Meanwhile, the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (Umpil) said that besides selling books, the two bookstores are known intellectual and creative hubs.
“Any attack on them should be considered an attack on all free and independent intellectual and creative work,” Umpil said.
The Philippine Center of the International PEN (Poets and Playwrights, Essayists and Novelists) also called for a thorough investigation of the case.
“Bookstores are channels of free expression and free opinion that are fundamental to the health and well-being of a democracy. With their liberal selection of titles, bookstores quietly but judiciously carry out debates and dialogues that keep democracy active and functioning. Ideological tagging and the violence of political partisanship achieve nothing but silence the bookstores, and even drive them out of business,” the Philippine Center of the International PEN said in a statement.
Both bookstores carry books of PEN-member authors. Solidaridad, on the other hand, is also a publishing house and the home of the Philippine Center of the International PEN.
The Academics Unite for Democracy and Human Rights considered the attacks as an utterly stupid act.
“A malicious idiot could easily dig one or two ‘leftist’ works buried in their shelves and triumphantly label the bookstores themselves as subversive. The worst thing, however, is that these vandals want a Philippines without any real bookstores at all. If we do not loudly raise our voices against this new atrocity, we will become a nation that truly and genuinely deserves only sellers of inspirational books, pens, and blank stationery,” it said.