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THE just-concluded Philippine Book Festival (PBF), which ran from Friday to Sunday at the World Trade Center, proves that the local publishing industry has arrived.
More than 50,000 people thronged the last day of the festival, which featured Filipino authors and creators, new titles, talks, workshops and live performances, all for free. A project of the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the largest traveling book festival in the Philippines will next move to Davao City from Aug. 18 to 21, 2023.
The first-ever PBF shone the spotlight on Filipino books, creators and readers. It celebrated the best of Philippine literature, culture and content, bringing education, entertainment and shopping in one festival for families, friends and book enthusiasts. It gave Filipino publishers and creators a platform where they could showcase their work, especially those done during the pandemic.
“How come we know about Shakespeare? How come we know about all of these global authors, but we don't even know the works of our own? We have amazing Filipino-authored content, yet we lack access. We've created a space where the entire family can enjoy all genres — from children's books to comics, textbooks, nonfiction books, and everything in between. That's what the Philippine Book Festival is all about,” says NBDB Executive Director Charisse Aquino-Tugade.
It was good to see young children gawking at facsimiles of the original handwritten manuscripts of “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” by the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. The Philippines is the only country in the world whose national hero is a novelist and a poet, and the PBF highlighted that fact. There was also a display on the first printed copy of “Banaag at Sikat,” the watershed Tagalog novel by Lope K. Santos that was translated into English as part of the Southeast Asian classics series of Penguin Random House, the biggest trade publisher in the world.
Penguin SEA was in full force, showing off the amazing fiction and nonfiction written by the best contemporary Filipino writers under its wing. There was also regional writing from Mount Cloud Bookshop, Savage Mind and Ateneo de Manila Naga Press, as well as an independent publishers' hub for the likes of Good Intentions Publishing, San Anselmo Press, among other ventures.
The three-day festival also had special meet-and-greet events with emerging talents and celebrated writers such as award-winning author and historian Ambeth R. Ocampo and cartoonist Pol Medina Jr., as well as the Wattpad writers and graphic novelists popular among the young. There was also a tribute in honor of Karina Bolasco, who has published 3,000 books in her work as a publisher at Anvil Publishing and at the Ateneo de Manila University Press. Mrs. Bolasco recently retired to restart a career in writing.
Apart from the meet-and-greets and book signings with authors, there were also talks and workshops on creating webtoon stories, visual storytelling, illustrating books for children, and more. The appreciative crowd attended literary discussions on gender and sexuality, enjoyed live performances and storytelling, and immersed themselves in various stories with the festival's Book Nook, with a curated selection of books and a comfortable lounge area.
Like four pillars, four realms made up the festival: Komiks for comics, Kid Lit for children's literature, Booktopia for fiction and non-fiction, and Aral Aklat for “edutainment” materials and textbooks. These were curated by the Book Development Association of the Philippines, Komiket, the Philippine Educational Publishers Association and the Philippine Board on Books for Young People — all leading organizations in their respective publishing sectors that were the partners of NBDB in this landmark project.
The PBF will become an annual event to showcase the best in Philippine publishing. It is an important first step in highlighting the best and the brightest work being done in the field, marketing and distributing them, and selling them so that they will reach the hands of their intended readers.
Pundits have said that print is dead, and they have been saying that for the past 20 years. Major events like the PBF show that there will always be a big market for books that are well-written and edited, with gorgeous layout and fine printing. These books are not only for Filipinos, but also for the world.
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