Iloilo Mega Book Fair returns to full physical setup

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

The Iloilo Mega Book Fair (IMBF), the largest gathering of bookworms in the city and province of Iloilo, is set to make a return to the physical setup on April 28 to 30, more than two years since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic broke out.

After being held fully virtually in 2020 and a hybrid set up in 2021, the IMBF will be held in complete physical fashion at the Iloilo Festive Walk Mall, specifically at the Balai Ilonggo shop and the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art.

Prof. Isodoro Cruz will give the keynote lecture on the second day April 29.

Cruz taught literature at the University of San Agustin and the University of the Philippines Visayas and is a National Book Awardee for his poetry collection titled “Bodies of Water”.

The 4th West Visayan Mother Tongue Children’s Books Summit will also be held on the third day, April 30.

There will also be a launch of 30 new books in the Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a languages, which were produced with the help of the ABC+ Project of RTI International and the United States Agency for International Development, together with The Asia Foundation and the Sentro ng Wika at Kultura at the University of Antique.

Speakers from Aklan, Antique, and Iloilo will also be present to give talks, and Prof. Wennielyn Fajilan of the University of Santo Tomas’ Sentro sa Salin at Araling Salin will also discuss the importance of translation in literature.

IMBF’s Project Director Noel de Leon told Daily Guardian that the talks will delve into the uniqueness of Western Visayas as a region which seeks to preserve and enrich the learning of its mother tongue.

“We are the first in the Philippines to study about our mother tongue development in literature and education. We are, maybe, also the first to have conferences which show great respect to Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, and Akeanon,” he said.

IMBF Project Director Early Sol Gadong said that there will still be virtual activities to be held online so that people who cannot attend in person may still have access to the book fair.

“Our alert levels have gone down, and we can now gather with more people, so we took advantage of this. Majority now of the activities are really face-to-face, but we also acknowledge that there is a bigger reach if there are virtual platforms,”

Gadong said that the book fair’s previous “pandemic editions” showed them that there was still a need to consume reading materials, especially books, as well as the increase in works by local writers during lockdowns.

She cited the ‘Books4Books’ local Facebook group during the height of the barter trade craze sue to the pandemic, where people would trade between their preferred book titles.

“We also saw, upon prodding our local writers, that many of them were able to produce works during the pandemic. Many of us are from the academe, and we saw that the CHED and the DepEd also continued classes amid the pandemic. That empowered us, even with physical distancing, to be able to hold [the IMBF virtually].”

For 2021, they made use of a hybrid setup, with talks held virtually and book sales in physical setup via Sari-Sari Bookstore, citing the continued lack of proper access to the internet.

“We also saw [in 2021] that if we continue to be completely virtual, the community’s access will not be 100 percent. People in our marginalized sectors, especially children of laborers, were the ones who we wanted to give priority access to,” Gadong explained.

De Leon said that the goal of the IMBF’s return to a face-to-face setup is to ultimately promote and make Western Visayan writers feel the support of the local community for their work

“We want to revive the book industry, particularly in Western Visayas. We will help publishers and writers recover, hoping that with this IMBF 2022, many will buy their works, and we will continue to support them, especially with our continued initiatives to promote local literature [in the region],” said De Leon.

The IMBF is organized by Kasingkasing Press, a local publishing house and online bookshop which features writers from the Western Visayas region, Book Latte, and Hubon Manunulat West Visayan Writers Group.

It is also supported by the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education, and the Graciano Lopez Jaena Museum and Library.