The National Book Development Board has chosen seven scholars to receive writing grants of P200,000 each at a ceremony on Feb. 11.
Under Food Science and Technology/Organic Agriculture/Sustainable Agriculture/Agritourism, the grantees are Dr. Jaime Cabarles (Iloilo) for “Commercial Production of Organic Philippine Native Chicken,” Prima Lou Imperial (Camarines Sur) for “Gusto Ko, Organiko!”, and Dr. Eufemio Barcelon (Cavite) for “Street Food Safety: A Primer for Philippine Street Foods.”
Under Traditional/Integrative/Tropical Medicine Category are Dr. Cecilia C. Maramba-Lazarte, Dr. Nelia P. Cortes-Maramba, Dr. Ernesta Quintana, Dr. Romeo F. Quijano, Ms. Jocelyn Palacpac, Dr. Evangeline Amor, and Dr. James Purificacion (NCR – Manila) for “Guidebook on the Proper Use of Medicinal Plants”; Dr. Bibiano S. Fajardo and Ms. Louanne Mae L. Calipayan (NCR-Pasig) for “Hilot: Revealing the Albularyo’s Ancient Secrets of Healing,”; and Dr. Mariano B. Caparas, Dr. Rene S. Tuazon, Dr. Josefino G. Hernandez, and Dr. Jacob S. Matubis (NCR-Manila) for an
ENT Tagalog manual, “Mga Karaniwang Sakit sa Ilong, Tainga, Lalamunan, at Leeg.”
Under Popular Science is Carl Anly Ortiz (Sorsogon) for “Demystifying Filipino Inventions”.
Grantees under the Local History and Culture category will be announced in March 2016.
According to the NBDB, through Republic Act No. 9521, the National Book Development Trust Fund was established to support and promote Filipino authorship and the completion of local manuscripts or research works for publication, especially in science and technology and in subject areas where locally authored books are either few or non-existent.
The grants will enable the authors to complete the writing phase of a book-length manuscript eligible for publication.
The agency is also accepting, until Feb. 12, nominations from publishers, authors, and illustrators for the National Children’s Book Awards in July 2016.
The award will recognize the best books for children and young adults (0-19 years) published in 2014 and 2015.
Many of you will not have heard of the NBDB until now. Yet it is doing much, given its limited resources, to support Philippine publishing and literature in the country. (Visit their website nbdb.gov.ph to find out more.) They are especially concerned with publishing non-fiction books that explain, inform, and educate.
There is a dearth of books published about Philippine concerns and issues written by Filipinos, so that we are at a loss where to turn to when we need information on a specific subject.
Take horseracing, for instance. I have been familiar with that industry since 1990, and yet there are no books about the subject, whether about the sport, handicapping (how to bet), the business, and so on- none at all, despite it being an industry that earns seven to nine billion pesos in gross sales annually, and contributes some P1.2 billion in direct taxes to government coffers.
Some years ago, a man called me, interested in learning more about the sport so he could participate in it. “I went to the bookstore and looked for books about horseracing, but found none!” he said. That’s because there aren’t any.
How about books on other games: gambling games such cockfighting and jueteng and other numbers games, and video games such as the massive popularity of Dota and Clash of Clans and other multi-player online role-playing games that have teenagers in Internet cafés till midnight? How about books on traditional healing methods, the art of Philippine tattoo, Philippine blues music, the history of Philippine lotteries? (Jose Rizal is perhaps the most famous winner of the Spanish-era loteria; he used his P6,000 prize to develop his little property in Dapitan while in exile there.)
There are so many books that need to be written. This is the challenge, not only to publishers, but also to authors—to fill the gap.
Books are their own unique magic, it’s been said. Filipinos should be able to not only draw from that well of knowledge, but also help fill it to gushing, so that people can drink from it, and learn more about themselves and the country they live in.
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