Light in the dark

November is National Reading Month, and at the kickoff last Monday Education Secretary Armin Luistro urged schoolchildren to let books unleash the wonders of their imagination. “There are books that will take you anywhere in the world… Books open up new and strange worlds that we might neither know nor reach. They can give us anything we imagine,” he told his audience at Pasig Central Elementary School.

Luistro also issued a memorandum encouraging preschools, elementary and high schools to hold activities and events that would spark a passion for reading in the run-up to Nov. 27, “Araw ng Pagbasa” (Day of Reading). Schools nationwide are urged to hold a book-reading session after the flag-raising ceremony on all the Mondays this month, or even set up mini-libraries—a greatly symbolic activity, with schools emphasizing the value of reading as both part of and beyond the curriculum.

It’s a critical point to make with reading losing its footing in the digital age—high irony considering the vast universe of reading matter available in the Web. The oceans of texts and rafts of pictures, graphics, illustrations, games and videos ad nauseam are cramping the delicate habit of reading, so that it is now necessary to devote time to focus attention on it, and redirect young people’s energies to the virtue of getting lost in a book, there finding both solace and excitement, and being thus gifted with knowledge, insight, memory, and then some.

Filipinos have a long and storied tradition of listening to as well as creating stories. Even before colonization, Filipinos had their own alphabet and wove their own wonderful tales. The colonizers found an educated people steeped in written and oral traditions, and to whom were taught—or imposed—other languages, literary forms and traditions.

It comes as a pleasant surprise that Filipinos’ love for reading still somehow endures amidst such time-wasting obsessions as Candy Crush Saga or Dota. The National Book Development Board’s 2012 Readership Survey showed that while the readership of books has declined slightly—from 92 percent in 2007 to 88 percent in 2012—the figure is still robust and makes up a motivation to persevere in pushing the reading habit.

The DepEd’s call to celebrate the magic of reading in schools clearly deserves public support. There are many ways to do it, including donating books we no longer need to those who would have use for them, and instituting activities to showcase the wonders of the written word. All over the country, libraries big and small are being opened and reading promoted with both government and private assistance. In August, Luistro announced that a solar energy foundation had donated a set of solar reading lights and charging stations for the libraries of 10 selected public schools. In Quezon City, Councilor Franz Pumaren issued the reminder that Republic Act No. 7743 requires the establishment of municipal, city and barangay reading centers, and urged the villages in the city that had yet to comply to do so. In May, international best-selling author Mitch Albom partnered with National Book Store to start the D.R.Y. Libraries project, which seeks to bring books to the libraries felled by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” Storytelling groups such as the Basadours of Cebu are reaching out to children and enlivening the reading process.

At the Inquirer, we practice what we preach. The award-winning Inquirer Read-Along holds its 4th Read-Along Festival on Nov. 12-13 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, showcasing the best Filipino stories for children aged 7-12 as read by celebrity and professional storytellers. (The event will be highlighted by the crowning of the Festival Queen or King, the champion of the Festival Storytelling Competition for students aged 10-12.)

According to the NBDB’s 2012 Readership Survey, more Filipinos are reading books not required in school and at very young ages, showing that family and early schooling are early factors in reading. Indeed, the habit of reading is one of the best practices we can teach our children, the hope of the motherland. Every book one reads, buys, or gives is a bright light shafting through the darkness of ignorance and poverty. It affirms the National Reading Month’s resonant theme that in reading, hope springs: “Nasa Pagbasa ang Pag-asa.”