In the province, women read Filipino romance novel that only costs P2-5 per book rental. In public markets, I see stands whereby bargained softbound books published by foreign and Filipino writers. You even find Booksale stores filled with book hunters. There’s that joy when you see children browsing through those pages. Once I saw a 4-year old kid who cried when her parents would not buy the book she explored. Poor!

Advocacy in reading is what is needed. Writers have the passion to drive across what they want to say. You’d be an advocate for Filipinos to read, let there be millions of Filipino readers. Writers of your kind are needed for readers like me who believe that we can make a difference in reading. Flipping through those pages are better than clicking through internet sites.

I remember in my high school years, we were required to do book reviews on “The Little Prince, “The Anthem” by Ayn Rand, and short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and books by Fr. F. Sionil, and other Filipino writers. Students back then are required to read the daily newspaper. I guess we also have to advocate curriculum in schools. How do schools incorporate reading and comprehension? I hope you do not stop writing. You still can move people to read and be read.

I don’t think we’re reading this if we’re dead.

Many claims you have there are quite painful. Not because they strike a core but because most of them are haphazard generalizations.

I won’t put it as “forgetting” for fresh graduates. Giving up the dream of seeing your name (as a writer) in the cover of a book is more likely to happen to “older” graduates. You are right that there are a lot of complications in getting published and readership is just one of them.

I guess writers wont have a job if there are no readers. My view about journalism in the Philippines, its a lot easier to write nowadays than before and with the internet, it is a lot safer for writers to write. But then again, newspapers can’t compete with the TV, Radio and internet, before they can print the news its already been heard over the radio, watched on TV or already posted over the internet.

It still wont hurt if every kids in our country will be taught to read more, because I remember aside from textbooks, there are no extra books given to elementary students, even high school if ‘Florante’t Laura’, ‘Noli Me Tangere’ and ‘El Filibusterismo’ were not mandatory to read, I dont think we’ll even know they exist. And if only every kids will be given an opportunity to finish college, and learn not to be greedy,our country will be one of the richest country in the world.

I hope now that we have the internet, writers will be encourage to write more. But like I said the bottomline is “If there are no readers, there wont be any writer.”, do you agree?

-e!