Luistro circumventing RA 8047

THE PHILIPPINE Book Development Federation (Philbook) reiterates our appeal for the lifting of the “Moratorium on the Purchase of Supplementary Reading, Reference and Other Instructional Materials” (Department of Education Order No. 44, s. 2013). Through this order, Education Secretary Armin Luistro is circumventing Republic Act No. 8047 (Book Act of 1995).

The moratorium has led many book publishers and printers to stop production and lay off employees for total lack of business, thus depriving public school students the desired intellectual nourishment. Stocks that couldn’t be disposed of as a result have left printers and suppliers unpaid.

The chain of publisher-printers employing thousands is nearing extinction. Authors, writers, editors and paper suppliers are also suffering from the moratorium’s impact.

As if adding insult to injury, the industry stakeholders are dealt another blow—a new system is being introduced in the selection, evaluation and adoption of manuscripts. This, while they are patiently waiting for the lifting of the moratorium which should be temporary.

The new system will eventually “kill” the publishers. Manuscripts submitted by qualified bidders who would pay P75,000 for bid documents will be evaluated in four stages. The manuscript that gets the highest points will become the only textbook that will be used in all public schools under this new single-adoption scheme. And only then will the bidding to print the manuscripts will follow. (Please note that printing is not among the consulting services covered by RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.) In the process, a manuscript owner may not qualify to bid, thus disregarding the publishers’ investments in millions.

The single-adoption scheme violates the Textbook Policy and RA 8047 which prescribe a multiple-adoption scheme. Ever since, the multiple-adoption policy has been prescribed to encourage the free flow of information and deregulation of book publishing—and to encourage more publishers to produce quality textbooks.

The new system is leading us back to the monopoly where the DepEd was the buyer-seller of textbooks, which was one of the reasons for the abolition of the former Instructional Materials Corp.—later renamed Instructional Materials Development Center when the corporation was converted into a regular nonearning agency.

The Philippine Fair Competition Act or the Anti-Monopoly Act supports our opposition to the seeming intention of the DepEd to exclude publishers in favor of a few, selected publisher-printers who eventually may become just printers in the process.

This is an appeal on behalf of the book industry’s stakeholders whose livelihood depends on the public school market and also of their workers who are now unemployed and mired deeper in poverty. Is this the legacy to which “daang matuwid” is leading us? Joblessness and hunger?

How we wish to be part of the few who are benefiting from the growing economy that time and again the administration boasts of.

—ROSENDO CANLAS, spokesperson, Philippine Book Development Federation