A BOOK IN EVERY FILIPINO HOME
(Statement of National Book Development Board (NBDB) Chairman Angel C. Alcala during the Press Conference at the Century Park Hotel on June 1, 1999, in connection with the observance of the Philippine Book Development Month)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS:
We observe, starting today, the Book Development Month. June is the most appropriate month for us to reflect on the importance of written literature, enclosed in the pages of a book, in the life and progress of a nation. The opening of classes dramatizes our people’s annual pilgrimage to the fountain of knowledge.
For us in the National Book Development Board and for those who are engaged in the book writing and publishing industry, this annual observance in June of a book month is singularly significant and truly meaningful.
This occasion gives us the opportunity to address the prospects and problems of the book publishing industry.
The passage of Republic Act 8047 in 1995 signaled the government’s serious interest in promoting the growth and viability of the book publishing industry.
The role of the NBDB is to design the policy framework and create a healthy environment for the book writing and publishing industry.
One of the vital policy reforms we will pursue is the privatization of the industry. We firmly believe that the government should not complete with the private sector in this business. What it should provide are more incentives and credit facilities to enable book publishing enterprises to come up with scholarly works which the reading public can buy of reasonable and affordable costs.
The NBDB and the private sector, in cooperation with local government units and the department education, culture and sports, have also launched a program to make reading a habit for all Filipinos.
The establishment of libraries in every municipalities and a reading center in all barangays are among the most ambitious yet attainable programs in this direction.
Private foundations abroad and cultural agencies of foreign governments are only too willing to donate reading materials for these reading centers. The local government units need only to make these centers available. The book publishing firms are eager to help make this program possible.
Even as we traverse into the Information Age of the 21st century, characterize by rapid advances in computer technology, reading will continue to be a primary source of knowledge acquisition. It will remain the most essential requirement for scholarship in literature.
This year’s observance of the Book Month should serve as the cut-off period for streamling and orchestrating the functions of various government agencies involved in the production, distribution, and marketing of books and reading materials.
The NBDB, under its mandate, will now embark on its mission to unite the various sectors in the book publishing industry and will be at the forefront of the government’s program to make books, particularly textbooks for the public schools, accessible and affordable to the poorest segment of the Filipino people.
Let us endeavor to make this occasion truly meaningful by making books, the most basic source of knowledge, available in every Filipino home. This is not a dream but a vision.