Okay, it’s been quite a while since the Manila International Book Fair ended, but my literal work life has been stressing me out and making me want to pull out what little hair I have on the top of my head. I haven’t updated the blog in a bit, unless it’s Drag Race Philippines: Slaysian Royale-related, but I need to put this out because I want to do something that isn’t related to work. ANYWAY, ENOUGH OF MY RAMBLING.
Back in the day, when the world was young and wasn’t burning down, I used to attend every single day of the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF). I’d attend the launches and sit in on the workshops and meetings, and I’d have enough articles for the newspaper to last me several months.
This time around, I only got to go for two days: the opening day and two days after, where I met up with Romance Class author Tara Frejas. I tried to get a zine published by someone who was in a workshop that I was also in, but there weren’t any copies left, so good for him!
Things have definitely changed since the years when I would spend my whole week at the MIBF. The booths were smaller this year, which meant that there were wider…aisles?… and it didn’t feel so much like you were at the MRT during rush hour. Or maybe it was because the days I went weren’t particularly high traffic? The people who went during the weekends would probably know better.
I’ve also changed. Other than being ancient and decrepit, I now also live in a shoebox and therefore can’t add any more physical books to my collection. I’ve actually even had to just give up a lot of the books I owned because selling them was taking too long. So while I looked longingly at a lot of books, I didn’t really buy any because I don’t have anywhere else to put them in my house. I only bought Angeli Dumatol‘s A Sky of a Thousand Colors, which I will hopefully get to read…soon?
Take a look at some of the pictures I took!
Primetrade Asia’s Irene Loren welcomed Filipino bookworms to the Manila International Book Fair with a short speech outlining the different things they can find in this year’s staging.Aside from Irene Loren, also present at the opening were Department of Education Assistant Secretary Cilette Liboro Co, National Book Development Board (NBDB) chairperson Charisse Tugade, Honey de Peralta, president of the Overseas Publishers Representatives Association of the Philippines, and Book Development Association of the Philippines’ Andrea Pasion-Flores.The Rex bookstore booth was really eye-catching! I wish I could have shot it better, but I’m not really a photographer. You get what you get!They had these on display at the Rex Booth. I don’t know why, exactly, but they could really draw a crowd!Here’s another thing that was new to me at this year’s MIBF. The booth within a booth. The Korean Cultural Center had a booth within the National Book Store booth.I thought this OMF Literature booth looked nice!Not really a big fan of Dan Brown, to be honest. But the MIBF is when the bookstores bring out the big names and the hardcovers.Again, not really a Central Books fan, but I thought their booth was nice and clean and looked inviting compared to some of the others.The Phoenix Publishing House also caught my attention because it looked ~futuristic~. Or at the very least, neon.This is actually the first time I actually saw what Martha Cecilia looked like. She’s such a huge name in the Tagalog romance scene that for a while, me and my newspaper colleagues thought she wasn’t a real person and was a collective pseudonym like Franklin W. Dixon.Honestly had no idea who these teachers were but they pulled me to take a picture of them so I did.‘Duty Ka Ba?’ creator Tepai Pascual with a fan!This year’s MIBF also saw themed sections, like the Kalye Katoliko one.I took a photo of this because I spent my elementary years with the Salesians. I didn’t know that they were publishing things other than those colorful diaries they gave us back in the olden days!This year, the National Book Development Board also had a collective booth for indie authors who couldn’t afford to have their very own booth at the MIBF.
Ron Does Stuff 
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