Books we need to read

IT IS National Book Week this week, and I found that out in a storytelling event sponsored by the National Library of the Philippines. It was fun to see costumed grade-schoolers telling stories, which sadly was in English. I wonder if there was a Filipino or regional language category.

The National Book Week is actually on its 82nd year and was originally proclaimed by the American colonial government. The proclamation was later amended by President Quezon in order to promote the culture of reading books and to support our libraries.

In this age when millennials seem to be more engrossed in social media, posting and pasting readings without verification, it is a wonder how often these kids go to libraries to read. Or for that matter, how are our libraries?

I also wonder if the millennials who are immersed in sassy romances, fantasy, horror and pop-culture, would ever appreciate the books that I and some of those from the older generation read.

It doesn’t mean we are better than them. I, too, started loving American and English books. The Sherlock Holmes compilation was the first book I borrowed from our library in college. Ernest Hemingway was also among my first favorites. “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” was a book that struck me. It was about youth and alienation.

The only Filipino book I finished reading in High School was “Noli Me Tangere,” a required reading.

I got familiar with Philippine books through my literature teach- ers. Rolando Bajo showed us our indigenous roots in folk literature and the spirit of struggle embodied in Asian poetry. Macario Tiu and Agustin "Don" Pagsuara, award-winning writers both, encouraged us to read and write in the language that our audience, the masses, could easily grasp and love.

In these times of social reawakening over former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, politics and history, we can turn to books to understand how these things came about. Note that there are hundreds of books that tell about Marcos’s sins, and hardly can you find a book extolling anything about the Marcos regime. It is only in Facebook and YouTube that we can find stories about the “positive” things Marcos supposedly did, which is more propaganda than fact.

I also appreciated activists and journalist mentors who introduced me to the books that stayed with me through the years. I would share some of these to you:

--“Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage” by Jose Lacaba. A great journalistic account of the student movement from the late 1960s leading to the First Quarter Storm of 1970. Lacaba captures in words, like a camera, the fiery demonstrations and clashes during former president Marcos’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) at that time.

--“Dekada ‘ 70” by Lualhati Bautista was almost like a Bible among student activists. I had three copies of these, all “borrowed” permanently. This is a historical fiction of a family transformed during Martial Law, told through the mother, who has dialogues with her activist-son interspersed with news reports of the difficult economic times.

--”Eating Fire and Drinking Water” by Arlene Chai is a new find, another historical fiction on Martial Law about an idealistic new reporter befriending an activist-leader hunted by the dictator while finding out the identity of her long-lost father.

For poetry, “Sa Panahon ng Ligalig” offers you Filipino translations of poems by Neruda, Rilke and Lorca done masterfully by Jose Lacaba. “Ang Pagiging Babae at Pamumuhay sa Panahon ng Digma” by Joi Barrios was my introduction to feminism with her fiery words against oppression of gender and class.

These are books that could guide the new activist and even the old one about our times. As some writers say, books are like our light that guides us and keeps us alive. Without them, history is silent. Go grab a book now.- from Sun.Star Davao