Showing posts with label book blockade 2009. Show all posts

Apparently, yes, it still isn't over. Never mind that GMA alluded to it in her SONA and it accounted for one of the 126 times she was applauded. "Taxes should come from alcohol and tobacco and not from books. Tax hazards to lungs and livers, do not tax minds." But then whoever believed in that SONA probably doesn't have any brains to think for himself anyway.


Apparently, our brilliant government has still found a way to get around the spirit of the law without following it to the letter. The exemption of books from tax still exists, sure. But in order to claim it you must file for it at the Department of Finance. In person. Every single time you have a book coming in. You have to justify that you are entitled to the exception. Ain't red tape grand?

I have this wild urge to emulate my favorite columnist, Conrado de Quiros, and revert to the vernacular in lambasting these morons that make up what we still call a government because we can't call anything else one. But then you see it everywhere: Even though something, a store, a restaurant, anything that renders service, offers something that might be advantageous to its customers or clients, such as, say, reduced rates and special offers, much of the time its personnel do not offer or mention this service. It's up to you to ask for it, if you know about it. But much of the time, you end up paying for something that you might have gotten for less or for free. The question is, does the actual price you paid reflect on the receipts, or does it go somewhere else?

With election coming up fast, hell, do we even need to ask why all of a sudden the government is trying to make as much money as it can, in any way it can? Do we even need to ask where that money goes, when our public servants even refuse to justify where it went once they have received it?

This tax on books is a double whammy... they make more money out of it, money that doesn't even seem to benefit the real people in the country and not just the few well-fed ones who claim to represent it. And a tax on knowledge means that they keep more people ignorant and thus more susceptible to whatever lies they want to feed them. Why do you think education is so neglected? I'd postulate that the reason lies in keeping people focused on something else aside from letting them think for themselves. Less education, more ignorance, more poverty makes people concentrate instead on the immediate need: food, shelter, life. So much so that like Esau, they would barter away their birthrights for a sack of rice, because it will feed their hungry stomachs whereas protest and resistance would only get them killed.

And we call ourselves a democracy.

I had been planning to write something about the end to the Great Book Blockade of 2009, but I guess this is what we mean when we say that the war has officially ended, but the mopping-up operations are still going on.

After everyone's efforts, and Rock Ed's Bookbigayan, GMA herself, on a Sunday to boot, ordered the Department of Finance to revoke the book tax. And Sales would comply.

We thought it was over, right?

But Malacanang told Teves to rescind the order. Teves, it seems has complied... by suspending it. Customs said, according to the Philippine Star, that some importers failed to submit some documents that would prove their entitlement to the exemption, which is why the order had been issued in the first place. And I recall reading somewhere... *searches* that DOF is planning to challenge the order anyway?

I mean HUH? First time I ever heard of THAT. And what documents do you need to prove your entitlement to the exemption from book tax? Isn't the fact that your shipment is made up of BOOKS enough to exempt it? This isn't like one of those cases where the authorities acknowledge a right then make up all sorts of requirements so that people can't assert it anyway, is it?

And anyway, it seems that the order is taking mighty long to trickle down the chain of command. Here's a comment from MLQ3's blog:

I have recently ordered a few books (total cost $US 77.26). I sent someone to pick them up yesterday (May 28, 2009) but she opted to not claim the books after seeing that she had to pay P1,216 in duties and other fees.

Here is the breakdown:
Customs Duty: P182
Value Added Tax: P519
IDF (this is illegible so I’m not 100% sure but it looks like I D F but could also be something else): P250
Customs Doc Stamp: P250
BIR (again illegible) Stamp: P15
Total: P1216

Also, they opened the package so that they could get at the invoice and see how much it was worth.

What’s legit? What’s not?

It seems, dear friends, that people at the post office are still implementing that idiotic search and seizure procedure taught to them by Customs of opening your package and looking for the original price of the books (search) and then charging you all sorts of fees based on that price whether or not you bought the books or got them gratis (seizure). After all, you have to pay if you want your books, right? And it seems you have the money to get books sent to you from abroad, so you must have the money to ransom, er redeem, them. The fee is in pesos. Peanuts to the dollars you must have expended to get those books.

The solution, according to our most esteemed bloggers, twitterers and plurkers, is to bring a copy of GMA's order, as well as news articles about the issuance of the order, with you to the Post Office when you go to claim your books. And do not budge even when they try to intimidate you with their hoity-toity I-work-in-the-government-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it manners. All they can charge you is a minimal package-handling fee (and make a fuss about it if it seems too big, too).

Okay. Right. Bring out the mops!

"The day after the first shipment of books was released, an internal memo circulated in customs congratulating themselves for finally levying a duty on books, though no mention was made of their pride in breaking an international treaty," Robin Hemley says of Philippine customs officials in the book blockade.

People are up in arms over the issue, yet so far no official action has been taken (Komikero Gerry Alanguilan has a blog post on what we can do about it). We are cautioned that the more we press the matter, the firmer the government will stand by its decision. Even gifts of books from abroad are now being charged by customs, it seems (and the customs officials also READ the blog writer's personal correspondence, who died and left them GOD? Now that they perceive the higher-ups as being on their side, do they think there's no limit to what they can do?) and she is not the only one with the same complaint. I hear from Twitter that Powerbooks will not be in the Manila International Book Fair this year:

"jfnord RT @charlesatan: Talked to Powerbook's GM. #Bookblockade is taxing them 5% for their books. Won't be participating in Manila Book Fair."

So far, although there's talk of official action to be taken, (Miriam has put in her two cents, and scuttlebutt on Twitter is that Loren is going to file a case) none has materialized to date. Instead, our wonderful legislators have chosen to focus on making a big issue of a sex scandal. Heck, even a city council hundreds of miles from Manila was falling all over itself discussing the controversial videos. Whoo hoo, score one for morality (double entendre not intended)!

Yes, I understand that morality (and just plain good old human DECENCY) is a serious matter. But so is literacy. So is education. So why are our good politicians choosing to make a big fuss about these sex scandals to the extent of personally calling for punishment of the people involved yet make no move to call for the investigation into and punishment of people who (a) just made our country violate an international treaty, and (b) just helped to lower our literacy rate even more?

Is it because:
(a) sex scandals are more "interesting" and "juicy" to a lot of people, and thus gives politicians more media coverage for the coming elections (who cares about books anyway, since they do not help to win votes?);
(b) customs duties on books means more revenue, more pork, more kurakot, more income for private storage facilities, in short more money to spend on the upcoming elections, besides, the people implementing the blockade are part of the same institution (the government), so why stop the blockade;
(c) people will shift their attention to the scandal and forget about the blockade; or
(d) (the most insidious of all) they don't really care about the literacy of the people in this country because ignorant people are easier for them to convince and manipulate, so it's better to keep most of the country illiterate and ignorant? I say illiterate and ignorant because a person who cannot read has effectively been barred access to a lot of information that he/she would otherwise have known.

I sense smoke and mirrors here. Lots and lots of smoke and mirrors.

Someone suggested that customs, in fact, is correct in what it is doing, because letting books go through customs tax-free is depriving the country of income, while booksellers make handsome profits out of their books.

FEH. You are weighing income against knowledge? Like those persons who commented in the Philippine Star:

“Books are more of a luxury than a necessity and reading is a hobby for the more affluent”
“If they do that, people would be forced to buy Precious Romance pocketbooks instead of the Harry Potter series or foreign-authored computer science books. At least there would be less inflation by chance.”
“The BoC is right to impose higher taxes on imported books so that people will patronize our own books. We must always buy Pinoy-made products.”

In effect, "books are a privilege of the rich" (facepalm, headdesk, are we still that feudal?). And compare Precious Romance with Harry Potter? True, they are both flights of fantasy, but PR is, sorry to say, pure brain-numbing fluff with kilig moments and steamy scenes thrown in, and with the same plots in endless repetition. I stopped reading them when better books were available, and why should I spend 45 pesos on a 120-page Tagalog romance when I can get a copy of an 800-page award-winning opus for the same price? Conversely, I have a long list of Filipino books I am dying to buy, except that they are all way out of my price range even with an employee's discount. The really good books, the ones I would bother to read, are all priced above 300 pesos each, while I can douse my weekly cravings for reads with three to five second-hand books worth from 15 to 40 pesos each (I have a preciously hoarded paperback copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, 15 pesos from Booksale. The benefit I get from it, as a writer and editor: Unmeasurable). It's not the books themselves per se, not the paper and ink and binding, but the words, the concepts, the insights they bring us that cost way, way more than 15 pesos. What price knowledge? What price the boundlessness of the mind? Priceless.

Have you ever had a close encounter with illiteracy?

I once thought of illiteracy in the abstract sense: does not know how to read and write. Fine. But until I met and got to know a person who does not know how to read, I did not know the full sense of the word.

A person who does not know how to read cannot read signage. They cannot read even simple lists. The people I know (and they are among the greatest, most wonderful people I've been privileged to have in my life) have to rely on their children to read and write everything for them.

I once asked one of their children to accompany me to an event. She would be away from home for two days. She regretfully declined because there would be no one to keep her small sari-sari store open. Her mother does not know yet the prices of the goods for sale, she said. I unthinkingly suggested that she just make a price list for her mom. She gave me a strange look and pointed out that her mother would not be able to read the list and would not be able to list down what had been sold and for how much. Such a simple thing that we are used to doing and taking for granted, but she could not do it.

My friend, that mother's daughter, loves to read, in fact cannot get enough of books. She is very happy when I pass on to her those books I've already finished reading; in fact, a good percentage of my personal library is at their house already, where she keeps it under her bed. They are just those 15-30 peso (around 30-70 US cents) secondhand books I find on my regular passes through Recto and Booksale, but their contents are golden to her. Her older sister tells me that she reads the books from cover to cover, almost memorizing them till she can quote them chapter and verse. I know the feeling, right down to putting one's finger on a word in the book to literally pin it down and savor it.

For people like us who love to read, whose reading brings us to other worlds limited only by our minds, barring our access to books, or even just making it harder for us to get them, would be closing doors on us. It would be enclosing us in cages that get smaller and smaller. Some people do not notice the cages because they are more focused on staying alive, but for us who do, it is not a very bearable feeling.

As they say, read or die. Shall we let them kill us, then?

Were it not for Robin Hemley's article, it seems, we would not have known that imported books might not be available to us in the future. (Backgrounder on the Great Book Blockade of 2009 here.) Reactions have been flying fast and furious. It seems everyone has put in their two cents and more... you only have to search #bookblockade on Twitter to see how people are reacting to this issue.

Robin Hemley has brought the issue to the attention of the AWP, but the Department of Finance is standing its ground on the matter, even daring critics to take the matter to court.

With the elections so near, and the reputation of customs for corruption, some people view the DOF's position with a jaundiced eye. There was, after all, mention of the need to fill a quota as the initial impulse for the imposition of a tariff on books. Add to that the now-famous lines:

"For 50 years, everyone has misinterpreted the treaty and now you alone have interpreted it correctly?" she was asked."Yes," she told the stunned booksellers."

-----------------------------

I spent my childhood in the back of beyond; my only friends were books and magazines, most of them foreign books, thanks to librarian aunts and the donations of the Asia Foundation that made their way to our distant province.

Those books were my window to the world that no one else in our small barrio saw or cared much about. I eagerly devoured The Black Tulip, Son of Black Beauty, The Crusader, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond along with back issues of Life and Reader's Digest. I accompanied Dick, Jane, Spot and Sally, and later Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, on their adventures, all while confortably ensconced in the old rattan lounger by the front window of our sala.

I might not have left my childhood home till late into my teens, but because of my books I had long ago traveled to Switzerland and Rome, London, Paris, New York and California. I might not have met other people outside of our small, tightly knit community, but I knew that the Dutch wore wooden shoes, that the Quakers were peaceable people, and that gypsies lived in wagons and traveled all over Europe. Those books may have been fiction, but they were an education in themselves.

My school used to enter me in those general info quiz bees, which I often won. That was the difference between someone who studied reviewers for the sake of winning a contest or acing an exam, and someone who read for the love of reading and learning.

Perhaps the weirdest victory I ever had was in the division quiz bee in the English language and literature category when I was in high school... my aunt got really mad at me the night before because I preferred to read Reader's Digest instead of going through the reviewers she had compiled for me. Among the articles in that issue of the Digest was one on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag Archipelago, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

And the deciding question that won me the division championship in English that year was, surprise, surprise: Who was the Russian writer who won a Nobel prize for his book on concentration camps? My closest competitor, of course, looked at me disbelievingly when I gave the correct answer, for we certainly weren't taught about Solzhenitsyn in high school.

The next year, I again won the championship for answering correctly that the story of El Cid Campeador (Rodrigo Diaz y Vivar) was the epic of Spain (everyone else answered Don Quixote, which is a novel, not an epic, but which is probably the only Spanish work mentioned in our high school lessons). Again, that was because at home we had copies of excerpts from both books.

Whenever I got the chance to be in a library, I read. I used to volunteer to accompany my aunt to district teachers' conferences, just so I could check out the venue's library. She would ask the school librarian to let me use the library, and I would stay there, contentedly reading till someone came to collect me for lunch or to go home. Sometimes those books were dusty but showed no signs of use; a lot of children didn't bother to use the library or worse, weren't allowed in for fear they would damage the books. I certainly recall that I knew the libraries of the municipal elementary and high schools better than that of my own barrio school, because the latter was opened only once or twice in the five years I was a pupil there.

Were it not for those books, I would still be there, content to live my life bounded by the four corners of our town. Without the windows into a different world that those books had given me, I would never have known that there is still so much out there to be seen, known, felt and experienced. Without those books, I would long ago have succumbed to people convincing me that I was not good enough to go out there. Yet here I am now, and here you are, reading this blog from wherever in the world you are. Here I am now, still writing. Because of those books.

And they now want to take that away from us.

If the book blockade had been enforced decades ago, I wonder if I'd be where I am today.