by Virgilio Almario (or Rio Alma), National Artist for Literature

A speech delivered at the Read or Die Convention
3 February 2007
Grand Ballroom, Hotel Intercontinental
Makati City

Read or Die. It seems that the organizers of this convention are young, heartfelt and very passionate. Why else would they name this convention “Read or Die”? It evokes Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.” There’s certainly a lot of force in it. And it lends an existential undertone to what is an ancient disease of the modern Filipino society–the problem of education and the related puzzle of why more than 90 percent of the Filipino nation do not read. Going by the name of our gathering, it would seem as if not reading is indeed punishable by dying.

Do you read?

This might sound like an insult to an educated Filipino. No one will admit that they do not read, even if the truth is their reading is narrow in scope and more often than not limited to the daily broadsheet. But even our newspaper readers cannot be said to constitute a respectable majority; they do not total one million a day. Let us think about it. There are nearly ninety million people in the Philippine and not even one million of this ninety million read the newspaper! Isn’t this fact an insult to the millions and millions of college graduates in the entire Philippines?

What is even sadder is that these newspaper readers are not the target audience of the organizers of this convention. When they say “Read or Die” they want us to read a book. Do you read books? Or perhaps, a much better question: When did you last read a book? Upon initial consideration, we might say that yes, we do read books, we’ve just forgotten to read these past few weeks or months. The problem is, many of us might have forgotten to read in the past few years. Or maybe we have not even bothered to open a book after graduating from college. (Wait, my assumption today is that college graduates or at least college students are the audience of this convention). Because it should depress us if, in addition to our forgetful reading habits, we reflect on the statistics of book production and sales in the Philippines. Only one thousand books are produced in an average print run. If these one thousand books are sold within a year, the title would qualify as a bestseller. Or maybe the author is rich and he buys copies of his books to give away to his relatives and friends.

The truth is, there are hundreds of thousands of young people who graduate from college every year. If only one half of these graduates regularly buy books and read, we will have a healthier and stronger book industry. But that is only a dream for now. Publishers make most of their money from textbook production. And that is why we usually see newspaper reports on the corruption involved in buying and choosing textbooks, especially when the Department of Education comes into the picture. If only selling trade books were enough to generate a profit, perhaps bidding over textbooks would not be so competitive.

Let us go back to my first question. When the educated sector as a whole does not read books, why should it surprise us that the masses, the Filipino public, do not read? On the other hand, I am not saying that Filipinos are simply not inclined to read. That we are seemingly cursed by God as a nation that does not read. People who say these things disgust me. They merely want to draw attention to themselves as exceptions to the rule, that they have been saved from the horrible destiny of their fellow Filipinos. That they are superior or genetically more endowed than the ordinary citizen.

Reading is not a natural activity, which is why there is no race or tribe in the world of which it can be stated that they are ‘lazy readers.’ Instead, reading is cultured. Reading is taught. It is carved into the hearts and minds of young children, sown into their very personalities, so that they will love the book like a precious gem or find it as delicious as their favorite treat in McDo or Jollibee. That is why we have very few readers in the Philippines, because our country has a huge cultural problem. What I mean is, there is a failure in the entire system with regard to nurturing and teaching children, from the home, to the community, to the school. There is no unity between these three social institutions and other elements of the environment of a young child so that he or she would grow up as a reader of books.

This is a very heavy problem. It will not be solved by one or even many conventions like this. There is no one institution in the society that should be blamed. I believe that all our institutions are in fact contributing in different ways to prolong and exacerbate this sickness borne by the Filipino body politic for more than a hundred years. I mentioned earlier that this is foremost a problem in education. But this is not a problem of our schools only though they have had a big hand in worsening it. This is an educational problem which needs a thorough and widespread analysis and a systematic and unified national campaign to save us and generations of young Filipinos from a punishment of death by not reading.

A very heavy problem but it doesn’t mean that it has no solution. There have been numerous campaigns in the past, like the celebration of Book Week. We should not think that a campaign such as this does not have any use. Perhaps what it needs is a little more verve in order for it to be effective. When it dies, enliven it. When capabilities are limited, attract other sectors to help re-establish it. In relation to this, I pray that Read or Die will not be a flash in the pan affair and that it will become a new force that will help stay the fate of many of our countrymen.

I have mentioned that we need a thorough and widespread analysis of this problem. If we compare it to a disease, an infection, it is something like a noxious boil. And it will not heal simply by putting medial plasters over it or drinking antibiotics. If this is a boil, we need to find its eye. Find the eye and draw out the pus. But we cannot avoid experiencing the pain especially if the infection has festered and will need a long-term curative.

Because what I call a thorough and widespread analysis will indeed cause pain and sacrifice on our parts. If we closely study each sector and institution in our society, I am sure that every shortcoming, every sin will come to light. It will hurt us to admit it, but we need to form a new and dynamic program which would lead to the nurturing and care of the Filipino reader.

Let us take for an example the language of education.

This has been a long-running issue but never faced squarely. We are all affected by this though we think that this is only a problem of writers and teachers of language. The use of the national language based on Filipino has been enshrined in three national constitutions over the course of the 20th century. This has had a beneficent effect on pedagogy because surveys and studies have shown that children learn faster if they use their native language when studying. But what is happening today? First of all, nobody is doing anything, especially the government, to fulfill the promise of our three constitutions. Secondly, and in recent times, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo outright ordered that English should be used as the language of education in all levels of schooling. Did we hear a strong protest against this executive order? No. The loudest I heard was a letter by Mike Luz to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on its January 22 issue and up to now I am still waiting for a follow-up.

On the other hand, I have expected that there will be no protest at all. For me. President Arroyo’s order is only a manifestation, a summary, if you will, of our decades-long hesitation to follow the dictum regarding the national language of all three of those constitutions. In our heart of hearts, we prefer English. Perhaps many of us are secretly applauding the executive order because we believe that English is the key to our progress as people and as a nation. Perhaps many of us today would like to walk out because I am using Filipino in this keynote speech. So what sort of pain would it inflict were I to tell you that the language of education in our country is one of the many eyes of the boil that we need to face, talk about, and ultimately find a solution to?

So that our campaign for reading should acquire a stronger tenor, I believe that we it is important that we accomplish this using one language, for literacy and for education. If it is English, then let us use English. But if we believe in the historical wisdom of our constitutions and in the findings of UNESCO and educators all over the world, it is time that we unite to push for one national language–Filipino.

In relation to to this, our decision to choose the language of our books should be equally meaningful. There are very few publishers who publish Filipino authors, and of these few, about eighty percent publish works written in English. (Notice this: Most of the books archived in our school and public libraries are English books, specifically books written by American writers). Don’t you think that this is one of the main reasons why Filipinos do not buy books? Or why the English-speaking minority are the prime market of our publishers? Why don’t our publishers enact a widespread campaign to introduce books written by Filipino authors and written in Filipino to the public? Why should we let the Filipino nation continue to consume their lives in gossip and crime because they only read tabloids and komiks? Why shouldn’t we exert extra effort so that we could give the masses a chance to read good literature, books which could teach them something new, cheap books that are nonetheless carefully printed, books that will give them new respect for themselves as individuals and as Filipinos?

These suggestions of mine do not mean that we should forgo English. That’s wrong. We need English and we need to continue learning English. But we also have to place the learning of English in a context which would not compromise our belief that we have a greater need for Filipino both as a language of literacy and as the language of the nation. I have said that this sort of analysis is painful because it would mean overhauling old ways of thinking. It would mean personal sacrifice. Educated people would surely have no problem with English continuing to be the dominant language of books. We can merely shrug our shoulders and let the status quo stand, and why not? We read English. We have nothing to lose. But if we mean to truly involve ourselves in a national campaign to promote reading, we need to be heroes too. We have to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of the greater good.

This sort of heroism is what is being expected of us, the educated. We do not need to climb a mountain. What our time asks of us is the realization of and involvement with certain truths in order for our countrymen to be free. For us to participate in a movement to create more readers is very important to liberate our nation from the quicksand of ignorance and for all of us to become active citizens of the Republic of the Philippines. So that our countrymen should learn to be critical of political issues and to vote wisely in the coming elections. So that we as a people would not have to die because we do not read.

Original text in Filipino can be found here.

Read or Die Philippines is a book club founded in 2005 at the Araneta branch of A Different Bookstore. The club holds monthly meetings usually in Manila bookstores.


Special thanks to Kristin Mandigma, Read or Die Philippines administrator, for allowing us to reprint this speech.