The Stages of a Booklover's Grief

While I was reading the newspaper this morning, I glanced upon an article about the Bureau of Customs revising a previous interpretation of a law that granted tax-free importation of foreign books. As I read sentence by sentence, feelings of disgust, indignation, and dissension slowly surfaced. This preposterous idea could soon make international best selling books scarce in local bookstores, importation of foreign titles has virtually stopped so to speak. It has started since a couple of months ago. Now, international best-sellers might be out of reach of ordinary Filipino booklovers like me.

Ofcourse, the first reaction was denial. No this is not true. This cannot be happening. I told myself, no this won't push through. Over and over again, I tried to convince myself but when it all failed, I suddenly became angry, outraged. This government is really damned! How can they snatch the one valuable thing in this world? How can they not realize what value books have in ordinary people like me, who finds utter bliss in reading cheap but quality books. As my outrage soon escalated, i saw this name, Espele Sales. he, allegedly, is the one behind this absurdity. he should be burned at the stake I thought. This anger cannot be quelled and was even aggravated when he said that novels and reading books are "not educational". WTF!

This supposed RA 8047 had no provision granting tax-free book importation according to Sales. but critics said that this violated the 1950 Florence Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Materials. This treaty has provided for duty-free importation of books to guarantee the free flow of educational, scientific, an cultural materials between countries. To this Sales retorted that novels are not educational, giving him the right to put tax on novels. This is truly unimaginable. To say even that novels are not educational is like blasphemy. Who and what kind of individual of sound mind would say that novels are not educational? While it maybe fictional stories, I can say that I learned a lot from the novels that I have read. From grammar, to vocabulary, to facts of life, novels are a whole lot more than being informative and entertaining. Must he be out of his mind? To belittle the worth of novels is like profanation to booklovers. he must not be a booklover I thought. he cannot fathom the disappointment of not having a most cherished book, or of the sudden gasp of breath upon seeing a most wanted book for sale, and conversely for standing aghast on a high price tag for the same, or of the fleeting emotion of the touch of paper in ones fingertips, of the enthusiasm, vigor and thrill to leaf through every page, or of the hypnotic smell of paper and ink, etc. etc. In short, the joy of reading a book or a novel. Then suddenly, i felt pity for him, sorry even for not having felt the same emotions we booklovers feel.

My anger was soon overshadowed by sadness. Now that the Department of Finance has declared that its all been a mistake, that books should've been taxed all along, books will now become more expensive and even further beyond the reach of the likes of me. It will even take books longer to arrive on store shelves. Dire it is indeed.

Jessica Zafra, on her article emotional weather report, said "What's tragic is that in our country, decisions are always based on expediency." As I went through anger, sadness and pity, I cannot help but think, living on a third world country that's focused on making more money as more of it goes to the pockets of corrupt officials, where the autocrats and the elite rule and where oppression is preponderant, what would happen to us then if we do not know what value a book has? It is no less than our national hero that taught us how powerful books can become. have we become oblivious or just plain apathetic?

Zafra said "Books are the repository of human experience. They tell us what being human is all about." It is sad indeed that most of us Filipinos do not really know what being human is all about, and even more frustrating that we do not know its worth.