ManilaTimes-Mar 15
THE Covid-19 pandemic failed to negatively affect book publishing in the Philippines with the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) alone being able to publish 101 books and monographs at the height of the public health crisis. KWF chairman Arthur Casanova said the fact that the KWF was able to come out with this number of books during the pandemic was “unprecedented” in itself. Casanova said KWF was able to start a project on folk literature last year and they were able to publish 12 monographs on local languages each with five folktales and folklores. By the end of 2021, KWF was able to come out with 60 folk literature for kindergarten to Grade 3, he added. This year, he said the KWF will continue with its project to publish new monographs on folk literature in different local languages that already have orthographies. An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis and punctuation. Casanova said the country has a total of 133 languages but only a few have orthographies. KWF’s target this year is to publish monographs of folk literature in 12 languages with orthographies. Charisse Aquino-Tugade, National Book Development Board executive director, said 2021 saw the rise of the “self-publishers.” She said during the pandemic, “something happened that they did not anticipate” in the book publishing industry. Read more at: https://www.manilatimes.net/2022/03/15/news/national/publishing-books-up-during-pandemic/1836334
