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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Ateneo Press denounces red-tagging, defacement of two bookstores

Ateneo Press denounces red-tagging, defacement of two bookstores

Published Mar 24, 2022 12:53 pm

The Ateneo de Manila University Press denounced on Wednesday, March 23, the red-tagging and defacement of two independent bookstores.

This, after Popular Bookstore in Tomas Morato, Quezon City and Solidaridad Bookshop in Padre Faura, Manila were defaced with anti-communist graffiti.

"Bookstores are crowded with ideas of all kinds pulsating from different groups of people. They are precisely the space where no single ideology or one tyrant can survive," Ateneo Press said in a statement.

"By making books available to readers, these ideas, borne on robust languages and fueled by the truth, teaches us to discern, be critical, and be free to not obey in advance or blindly follow," it added.

Similarly, all Filipina-led publisher Gantala Press slammed the vandalism of the independent bookstores.

Gantala Press said the defacement and malicious accusations are "a result of the government's paranoid counterinsurgency campaign which accuses any person of 'terrorist'."

"The attacks follow the censorship and book purging initiated last year by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict upon university and community libraries in Northern Philippines and the Visayas," the publisher said.

In September last year, removal of books and documents published by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines were removed in at least three state university libraries to supposedly "protect" the youth and students from insurgent ideology.

Gantala Press alleged that the censorship and red-tagging are parts of the government forces' project to crash any forms of opposition against the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte and peddle historical revisionism in favor of the Marcos family.

"Knowledge is the people's weapon in ensuring that truth, justice, and human rights are upheld. Books hold this weapon, and thus strike fear upon the enemy. Through books, we document our everyday struggles and resistance, we imagine an ideal life for every person, and the sovereignty of our country," it said.

"A state that cannot ensure and protect the free flow of knowledge and information is not a democratic state, but an autocratic one. We Filipinos, children of revolutions and people power uprisings, should not allow this dangerous oppression to take shape and dictate our reality."

READ MORE: Literary critics, academics decry red-tagging, vandalism of bookstores

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