The Great Philippine Book Blockade of 2009 is one of the most sought after issues that we, as a society, faced in the recent month. Bureau of Customs are hoarding imported “uneducational ” books from January to March because of the refusal of book importers and sellers to pay the custom’s taxes. “Uneducational” books, according to the Bureau of Customs, are novels such as “Twilight”, “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” which according to them again do not bring educational value to the readers. Apparently, the BOC is confined to the realm of hard science as the only legitimate education and making the arts and culture.

Many people were raged against this issue and felt that taxing imported books only hinder us from knowing things that are outside our boundaries. We know that the internet is already existing however most of us (including me) would still prefer to read printed materials. The quest for knowledge shouldn’t only be through one medium, the reader has the right to choose in which format he or she prefers to get information from. The BOC is being too greedy to Philippine society and they have the gall to be arrogant that they know the law. In fact, they have already been violating the Florence Agreement (United Nations Treaty) which was signed by the Philippines in 1952, stating that all nations have the right to imported information and books and other printed documents should not be taxed at all. Read the rest of this entry »

A fellow blogger requested me (and Karla) to be part of the round table interview with Duster last Wednesday. Because I am a fan of this band, I immediately agreed to be there .

The Duster Round Table Interview was initiated by Sony BMG (Duster’s record label) and of course some members of the media were there. I wasn’t really prepared for my questions because there were still errands to do so when Karla and I sat together on the table while waiting for the other media to come, that’s the time we were thinking of the questions . Haha, talk about professionalism.

The Duster ladies entered the small function room and sat infront of the media. The girl from Fudge Magazine started with her questions then other followed as well. I injected my questions whenever it’s related to their questions. Read the rest of this entry »