SPONSORSHIP SPEECH OF SENATOR ALAN PETER "COMPANERO" S. CAYETANO ON SENATE BILL NO. 1720 OTHERWISE KNOWN AS "THE NATIONAL BOOK DEVELOPMENT TRUST FUND ACT", 8 October 2008

Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, may I have the honor to sponsor Senate Bill No. 1720, a legislative measure seeking to create a national book development trust fund to support Filipino authorship.

If passed into law, the interest derived from the Trust Fund will enable at least sixty-five (65) grants worth P150,000.00 each per region to be awarded yearly. This will enable deserving writers or researchers in the Philippines to produce or finish excellent manuscripts on a variety of topics or subject areas for publication.

The Fund is especially intended to support our talented Filipino authors who are having difficulty finishing their manuscripts due to financial constraints and preoccupation with their full-time jobs.

This measure is in keeping up with the provision of Republic Act No. 8047 otherwise known as the "Book Publishing Industry Development Act" which grants the National Book Development Board (NBDB) the power and authority "to form a trust fund to enable the Board to accomplish its development plans on book publishing" [Section 8 (k)].

The Philippine book publishing industry may be considered a dwindling industry based from its book output. According to statistics from the Philippine National Library, since year 2000, there is an average of only 5,326.5 books published per year in our country. Moreover, in a related study, 70 percent of this total book output is generally composed of textbooks and general reference books.

In comparison with our Asian counterparts, the Philippines has one of the lowest book production. This figure becomes even more miniscule if we are to compare it with other countries and in the context our respective levels of population. For instance; Malaysia's rate of production is 20,000 titles a year and its population is only around a third of our population.

At present, most of our authors come from Metro Manila and most authors who are recipient or grants are also from Metro Manila. Once enacted into law, this measure shall also equalize the opportunities among our Filipino authors as the distribution of grants will be according to geographical regions.

The amount of the grant to be given to our Filipino authors shall essentially depend on the quality of the manuscript and a number of related factors including the usefulness of the study, its commercial viability as well as the amount of time needed by the author to conduct their research, take a leave from their jobs and finish writing the manuscript.

A more detailed and extensive set of criteria will be presented in the Implementing Rules and Regulations that will be subsequently drafted.

While I can attest to the noble intentions and good judgment of the senators of the previous congresses, I would surmise that the only reason why this measure failed to flourish during the previous two Congresses is the uncertainty of securing monetary support for the Fund.

Under our current proposal, the financial contribution to the Fund shall be obtained from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR). During the public hearing of our House counterpart committee, the PAGCOR, through its representative, expressly mentioned that they will support this proposal "with very easy installment of P5 million per month up to 10 months amounting to P50 million."

However, once the trust fund is set up, other entities may also extend their donation to the Fund. The principal of the Fund will be kept intact while the interest will be used for the purposes of the Act.

While this proposal shall have the direct effect of supporting our Filipino authors, this bill once enacted into law will also play a major role in the dissemination of knowledge. The thesis annually produced by our colleges and universities may be rewritten in layman's' language to benefit a wider readership.

Mr. President, the digital generation cannot diminish the enormous power of books to inform, educate, entertain and record and preserve information for the benefit of succeeding generations.

While our local publishing industry may be considered lagging behind by international standards, this has not considerably affected the Filipinos penchant for reading In an article published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, an international survey shows that Filipinos on the average read more books than the Chinese, Koreans or Indians. On the other hand, according to a 2003 Social Weather Station on the survey of reading attitudes and preferences of Filipinos, 90 percent of Filipino adults have read books and 68 percent have read non-school books.

From these statistics, we can deduce that that there is a huge market for books in our country. What we need is to provide more incentives for Filipino authors to venture into various topics so that they may capture the diverse interests of Filipino readers.

This bill may just provide the impetus that will create the dynamism in our country's book publishing industry.

Mr. President, with this Chamber's support for the enactment of this measure, we can be assured of an increasing fold of good, talented and successful Filipino authors across regions in our country. Moreover, we can clearly envision a more active book-reading nation, a well-informed and vigilant citizenry and a more progressive Filipino nation.

Thank you.