UPDATE: Do read The Great Book Blockade of 2009: Timeline and Readings for in-depth coverage. Kudos to MLQ3.
A couple of days ago, I read this post The Great Book Blockade of 2009 and ended up being yet again pissed off at the stupidity of government agencies.
But let the post speak for itself. Quoting from the post:
Over coffee one afternoon, a book-industry professional (whom I can’t identify) told me that for the past two months virtually no imported books had entered the country, in part because of the success of one book, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The book, an international best seller, had apparently attracted the attention of customs officials.
…
The importer of Twilight made a mistake and paid the duty requested. A mistake because such duty flies in the face of the Florence Agreement, a U.N. treaty that was signed by the Philippines in 1952, guaranteeing the free flow of “educational, scientific, and cultural materials” between countries and declaring that imported books should be duty-free. Mr. Agulan told the importer that because the books were not educational (i.e., textbooks) they were subject to duty. Perhaps they aren’t educational, I might have argued, but aren’t they “cultural”?
No matter. With this one success under their belt, customs curtailed all air shipments of books entering the country. Weeks went by as booksellers tried to get their books out of storage and started intense negotiations with various government officials.
What doubly frustrated booksellers and importers was that the explanations they received from various officials made no sense. It was clear that, for whatever reason—perhaps the 30-billion-peso ($625 million) shortfall in projected customs revenue—customs would go through the motions of having a reasonable argument while in fact having none at all.
Customs Undersecretary Espele Sales explained the government’s position to a group of frustrated booksellers and importers in an Orwellian PowerPoint presentation, at which she reinterpreted the Florence Agreement as well as Philippine law RA 8047, providing for “the tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing.” For lack of a comma after the word “books,” the undersecretary argued that only books “used in book publishing” (her underlining) were tax-exempt.
“What kind of book is that?” one publisher asked me afterward. “A book used in book publishing.” And she laughed ruefully.
…
Likewise, with the Florence Agreement, she argued that only educational books could be considered protected by the U.N. treaty. Customs would henceforth be the arbiter of what was and wasn’t educational.
“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.
Here’s the link to the relevant law, RA 8047, and here’s the text of the Florence Agreement.
Amazing. Seriously.
If there’s anything I hope gets done about this, I hope that a class action suit will be filed on behalf of book importers in particular and people who read books in general, against the Bureau of Customs. Heck, file it against the government at large, for violating a treaty of which the Philippines is a signatory.
If anything, it should be the educators among us spearheading such a protest.
See, it’s sad enough that quite a number of people do NOT consider the Philippines having a reading population (a situation that has a catastrophically detrimental effect on our educational system), but it really gives our people the shaft when the government itself gets in the way of our getting stuff to read. It wasn’t reading educational material that makes a man complete — it was reading per se that Sir Francis Bacon says that makes a full man.
I remember one of my former colleagues, a brilliant supervisor who had a pithy comment when our Catbertian human resources people want to restrict the reading of newspapers in the office. She said, “Gusto ba nila tayong maging mangmang?” I agreed fully with her reaction. Getting in the way of folks’ acquiring new knowledge does imply that the people making such an imposition do want these folks to not learn anything new.
Maybe the government does want to keep our people benighted? Heh. Shades of the Noli and the Fili.
Do also read MLQ3′s column amplifying on the same topic… if we’re going to let this slide, we’re going to be doing the education of our kids a great disservice. If we can’t get quality reading material easily, what next for them?
Heck, we’ll be doing our own continuing education as we go through life a great disservice by letting this travesty slide.
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wow. thanks for writing about this.
this is weird! the florence agreement says nothing about what kind of books it is limited to.It says:
Article I
1. The contracting States undertake not to apply customs duties or other charges on, or in connection with, the importation of:
(a) Books, publications and documents, listed in Annex A to this Agreement;
looking at annex A we find:
Annex A
Books, publications and documents
(i) Printed books.
that is as general as one can get…
this is something people should try to change. the customs people are just wrong. plain wrong.
here is a link to the McSweeny’s article:
funny!
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/manila/1dispatch6.html
“Do also read MLQ3’s column amplifying on the same topic… if we’re going to let this slide, we’re going to be doing the education of our kids a great disservice. If we can’t get quality reading material easily, what next for them?” — Jester-in-Exile
jESTER, we don’t need hundreds and thousands of books … what we need is just one big fat old book! IT’S CALLED THE BIBLE!!!! ha!ha!ha!ha!ha! What good in going to school. What good in reading books. When we still believe in some God who predestined us to be slaves and 2nd class citizen in our country? HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!
Read this one, too.
http://pgenrestories.multiply.com/journal/item/815
Near the bottom of the thread, you’ll find this:
pgenrestories
reply
pgenrestories wrote today at 2:21 AM, edited today at 2:33 AM
Okay, here goes.
First of all, Undersecretary Sales and her team at the DOF spent a lot of time studying the rules/laws/regulations involving this matter beforehand, and found that in Sec. 105 of the Tariffs and Customs Codes, there really is a provision for a 1% duty on imported books (“educational, cultural, etc.”) that are for sale and for profit, and she said that the Florence Agreement was addressed here in this specific section. This 1% has been in existence since way long ago, and in fact, has not been implemented for that long a time. After Undersecretary Sales and her team studied all these laws, the results of this was that this regulation should be followed because it is the law, and forthwith published this information on Easter Sunday 2009, with implementation to follow 15 days after Easter Sunday. From what I understood of what she said, there will be no duty only if these imported books are donations to public schools, readers’ groups, etc., that is, if the books imported are not for sale or for profit. This 1% is for, to use her words, “control/monitorinig” of the imported books coming in. She used the example that if a bookseller brings in P100,000.00 worth of books, the duty on this is only P1,000.00. She told me that she would like to also make clear that vat on books is still 0%, no matter what.
Now, if a book or title does not fall under “cultural, educational, etc.”, then that duty goes up to 5%. However, she points out that the DOF is not the one who determines a title’s labeling of whether it is “educational, cultural, etc.” She said that this labeling belongs to other organizations (she mentioned the DepEd and Unesco).
These laws which she and her team researched were brought up in a respectful meeting with various Congressmen. She said that at first, a number of them were against it, but when she explained that this duty has been in existence in law for so long and really has just not been implemented, they agreed to it. She said that if the Congressmen really want to make it 0% duty for all, then they must pass that law first before the DOF can implement it. In other words, the legislative part of the gov’t, Congress, has to pass it into law before the DOF, the executive branch that “executes” these laws, can enforce it. As of now, after all their study, Undersecretary Sales and her team have seen that this duty exists in law, and they are doing their job in enforcing it.
After this meeting with the Congressmen, Undersecretary Sales and her team also met with various booksellers. She said that her meeting with them was cordial, good, and respectful, as she made all these details clear to them. In other words, her meeting with them went well with no untoward incidents, which is why she was surprised at what came out in the Hemley article. Everything was spelled clearly to the booksellers.
I also asked her about books ordered, say, on Amazon, and picked up at the post office. Should that duty be paid there too? She said, “Yes, but only if that hasn’t been included in the original payment.” In other words, check your receipt and your emails of the online transaction. If duties had already been paid via Amazon or whatever online bookseller, then print that receipt/email and bring that proof with you to show that duties have already been paid. If however your receipt/email doesn’t show this duty, then you are obliged to pay for that duty.
She was particularly disturbed at allegations of “corruption”, because she said she is also head of the DOF’s Revenue Integrity Protection Service, and not just the Revenue Operations Group. In other words, if there are problems of corruption, one can always report this to her department. One can get her department’s contact info over at http://www.dof.gov.ph.
I hope this fairly airs her side of the matter. For my part, I’m grateful to her for giving me, just a regular guy, the time. It was a good, calm, respectful talk. I treated her with respect, and I am so glad that she did so likewise with me. Frankly, I was afraid that her department wouldn’t since I’m just a regular guy, but she gave me all the information I asked for, and answered all my questions cordially. Like I said, she spent long minutes talking to me during both our lunchbreaks, explaining her points and bringing out concrete data of what went on with her study and what she implemented. I’d like to thank her very much for doing so, and for making clear what all this really means. I hope I did the fair thing and aired her side as completely as I could.
thanks! there’s more: http://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/on-the-great-book-blockade-of-2009/
the problem is that the florence treaty is CRYSTAL CLEAR.
the other, relatively smaller, problem is that implementing a law after 50 years on silence is problematic, at best.
They should file a case against the Bureau of Customs in court.
gabbyD,
here are what i find rather inconsistent:
books mentioned in art 105 of the AN ACT TO REVISE AND CODIFY THE TARIFF AND CUSTOMS LAWS OF THE PHILIPPINES:
said law was enacted in june 22, 1957, and became effective july 1, 1957.
the philippines signed the florence agreement in 1979; therefore, par s of sec 105 should be considered invalid since 1979 and should have been separated.
unless, of course, via the BoC we want to abrogate the treaty.
ah, well.
quite correctly you point out that the florence agreement applies to books in general.
Listen, guys! There is more corruption than this book sale. If you wanted to Bring Bureau of Costume down it could have been done long time ago not by these Book Sale ….. AND LO AND BEHOLD … THE PEKENGP-PERYODISTAS ARE EXTREMELY QUIET ……HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!
DAMN those CUSTOMS PEOPLE!
I even heard they plan on taxing ALL books, not only the classic/cultural whatnot but the EDUCATIONAL books too!
HOW IN THE WORLD ARE WE TO AFFORD OUR BOOKS IF THEY ADD UP TAXES!!??
college tuition fee is already problem enough for our parents, and now this?
It would only be a short time until the student body, and readers nationwide would cause an uproar!
To HELL WITH THIS GOVERNMENT!
Do read The Great Book Blockade of 2009: Timeline and Readings for in-depth coverage. Kudos to MLQ3.
Problem-reaction-solution over and over again. Government uses crises to scare the public into submission. That is so important to understand! people don’t think too much these days and thats just what they want stupidification of the people is deliberately done by the goverment in order for people not to think too much because if we do we will be released from blind submission and they will crumble. pls watch “zeitgeist” documentary on http://www.sprword.com open your eyes and see what’s real.