OK, this isn’t a full-blown analysis yet, and so I reserve the right to tweak my opinions later (and hey, if I’m wrong, I’d love to be educated), but let’s talk.

First off, the CMO cites the wrong  Executive Order. What it should say in 2.7 is Executive OrderNo. 885 — not 855. You can find that EO here, along with its annex, which was also attached to the CMO.

Reading the CMO, it could be argued that it shouldn’t apply to regular books, imported by regular consumers, at all. Why? Let’s look at the scope of the CMO, in reverse order:

• Importations of Books by non-stock, non-profits – I’m not considering NSNPs to be regular consumers, so let’s skip that first.
• Books or raw materials to be used for book publishing under RA 8047 – Whatever your stance is on the applicability of RA 8047 with regard to books that aren’t about/for publishing, Section 2.4 of the CMO makes it clear that as far as the BOC is concerned, this category only applies to an importer who is also a book publisher. Again, has no application to someone having a copy of “Twilight” shipped.
• Educational, scientific and cultural materials under the Florence Agreement – as I previously pointed out, under Article 1 of the Florence Agreement, “Books, publications and documents” are separate and distinct from “Educational, scientific and cultural materials”. They are even subject to separate Annexes in the Florence Agreement. So this category SHOULD NOT apply to books, especially since, as per the Reading Guide on the UNESCO page: “The exemption granted to books is not subject to any qualifications as to their educational, scientific and cultural character.”

None of the above categories then, would seem to be applicable to a customer importing a book or two from abroad, or, to be frank, even a huge book chain importing the latest bestseller in bulk.(It also casts a bit of a different slant on the reply sent to Oli by UNESCO Philippines–note that they don’t mention “books” so it’s possible that their position is in favor of the need for certification of “materials” and not “books”.

Now, does the BoC indeed to apply the CMO to Juan de la Booklover? I think so, based on how they seem so proud that they’ve “rationalized” book importation, and based on their mention of books, newspapers etc. in Section 2.6. So we still have a fight on our hands. But short term, this CMO looks defective, or, at least, ill though out. I’ll need to look at EO 885 and a few other laws, but, paraphrasing from my letter to UNACOM:

The imposition of excessive regulations on a benefit stifles the enjoyment of said benefit, and is especially onerous to the poor, who are precisely the parties most in need of it. With all due respect, to require a book importer to submit documentation to a government office every time he/she wants to acquire books from abroad, demands too much in the way of time and resources, especially if the importer is not based in Metro Manila, and if the importer is an individual buying one or two books at a time, as opposed to a corporation engaged in bulk importation. The Florence Agreement was created precisely to ensure “the free exchange of ideas and knowledge and, in general, the widest possible dissemination of the diverse forms of self-expression”, and a procedure wherein a book must somehow be further “qualified” before being released duty-free by customs chokes this exchange of ideas, for no comparable gain on the part of the government.

As for the long term? I have the go ahead to draft a bill. The boss and I will be counting on everyone’s support ok?

Hi guys! Been busy over at Rocket Kapre, but for those of you who still check BT, I’m proud to announce that Rocket Kapre has just launched Usok, a free webzine for Speculative Fiction by Filipinos. Issue 1 is now live, and we’re also accepting submissions for future issues. Come over and check it out ^_^ Here’s the Table of Contents for Issue 1:

Table of Contents:

* The Startbox by Crystal Koo

* The Saint of Elsewhere: A Mystery by chiles samaniego

* Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing by Kenneth Yu

* The Coming of the Anak-Araw by Celestine Trinidad

* The Child Abandoned by Yvette Tan

~ Coverart by Kevin Lapeña

We have lift off ladies and gentlemen.

After months of planning, I’m proud to announce the official launch of Rocket Kapre Books and rocketkapre.com.

Rocket Kapre Books is a digital publishing imprint dedicated to bringing the very best of Filipino-made Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction and other works of a fantastical nature) to a worldwide audience by means of affordable and accessible ebooks (stories contained in digital files that can be read from computers, smart phones or ebook readers).

Rocketkapre.com endeavors to serve not only as the online headquarters for the imprint, but also as a home for creators and fans of Philippine Speculative Fiction, incorporating an active blog that will showcase interesting links as well as generate exclusive content such as interviews, contests, writing tips and original fiction.

So come on over and join the fun! For launch day we’ve got a round table discussion of our favorite Filipino-created fantastical stories, a preview of the ambitious Mind Museum going up at the Fort, and an interview with Kate Aton-Osias regarding the upcoming Farthest Shore anthology. And hey if you want a more complete explanation as to why I put up Rocket Kapre, you’ll find that there too.

Hope to see you there! And please, spread the word: feel free to use our banners and promotional comic strip to get the message out: there’s a new home for Fantastic Filipino Fiction.

]]> http://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/rocket-kapre-fantastic-filipino-fiction/feed/ 3 Anitero RKSkyscraper1A(160x600) http://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/t-minus-one-day-to-lift-off/ http://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/t-minus-one-day-to-lift-off/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:00:28 +0000 Anitero http://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/?p=561 Continue reading →]]>

[click to enlarge]

Curious? Check back tomorrow, 9/9/09 at 9 a.m. (Manila time) for the launch of a dream.

[The awesome comic above is a gift from the awesome Dado de Guzman. Watch out for an interview with him, which will be released on the new site!]

Are you ready to soar?

Sorry if that was a bit dramatic but it got your attention didn’t it? And while there is a time for circumspection, for earnest modesty, this is not one of those times.

Some of you might remember these posts and the promise I made to establish a digital publishing house for Philippine Speculative Fiction. I’ve been hammering away at that dream for half a year now… and I’m about to take the first major step at making that dream a reality.

On 9 September 2009, our new imprint will launch its website/blog dedicated to all things relevant to the readers and creators of stories of the Philippine Fantastic. Our aim is that the site can serve  as a launching pad for great Filipino SF, and also a venue for a greater understanding of the magical, speculative and scientific aspects of our culture and heritage. But most of all, want we want the site to do is create a community, and for that we need your help. We want to hear what you guys want in a site that aims to be something akin to the io9 or Tor.com of the Philippine Fantastic.

Tell us: what kind of topics would you like to cover? What kid of features or posts would keep you coming back? Here’s a list of things we’re working on:

• A free online zine with SF short stories from Filipino authors old and new
• Interviews with creators/writers/artists
• Reviews of Filipino created books and komiks
• Roundtable discussions on important issues or interesting questions
• Reviews of non-Filipino created media that would interest Filipino SF readers
• Articles exploring our myths, legends, culture and history
• Silly–but sincere–fan speculation about our favorite local characters (I’m working on a post pitting certain cast members of Trese ant the Mythology Class against each other)

If you have content you want to see on the new site, please let me know in the comments section (which will be moderation free). On September 9, at 9:00 a.m., we’ll post the address for the new site here (those of you who’ve already seen it please don’t make the URL or the imprint name] public–it’s not quite ready for prime time yet -_-).

Hold on to your seats everyone. Not sure where this journey will take us, but I promise you we’re going full speed ahead.

• Local News:
  • Bob Ong as National Artist: An article in the Philippine Star by Isagani Cruz where he breaks down why anonymous author Bob Ong might qualify as a National Artist–as opposed to you-know-who.
  • District 9 Review: by David Hontiveros. Protip: He liked it.
  • Cosplay Mania 2009 Contests–Updated: Some interesting upcoming events for cosplayers, listed over at the New Worlds Alliance.
  • Filipino-made Film Named Best SciFi Film in California Festival: The article doesn’t really describe the film much so can’t say how SciFi it is… but thing that saddens me about this is the comments section.  I understand not getting worked up about the achievements of another just because he’s Filipino, but to justify such disregard by labeling him a “Fil-Am” seems to me small-minded in the extreme. It builds walls where we should be breaking them down.
• Science News:
  • Spiderbot: It looks kind of… awkward. But hey, I’m sure I did too when I was learning how to walk. (Cors’ I never did master the walking on the ceiling bit…)
  • Theatrical Robots Kiss: I want to see robot musicals now. Are you listening Repertory Philippines? ROBOT MUSICALS!
• Book News:
  • Google Opens Up Its EPUB Archive: Download 1 Million Books for Free: Need I say more? I probably had you at “Books for Free” For the curious “EPUB” is an ebook file format that quite a few groups want to see adopted as the standard ebook file format, sort of how the MP3 is for audio.

I’ve mentioned the on-going voting for the 2009 Komikon Awards, as well as the nominees, but for those without easy access to participating comic book stores (which is, let’s face it, everyone outside of Metro Manila) you’ll be pleased to know that you can now vote for your favorites online via two methods:

The first is through a poll on deviantart which is accessible for deviantart users. It’s not all that difficult to register on deviantart, so don’t look on that as an obstacle.

You can also vote at the official Komikon website–look for the drop down awards menu at the top of the site. Registration (on the Komikon site) is required, as is to be expected to avoid a scenario where the winners are determined solely by dint of which nominee has fans with the most free time. One difference between the Komikon site and deviantart though is that on the Komikon website, you can see the current tally of votes before casting your own.

Voting is until September 20, so I urge everyone to take the time to familiarize yourselves with the nominees before voting–try not to just vote for the nominees already familiar to you @_@. Consider it as practice for the research we’ll all (well all of above 17 that is) have to do for May 2010.

Fanfiction (or fanfic for short) is a phenomenon close to my heart. The first stories I ever wrote, before the Internet even reached the shores of the Philippines, were stories about my original characters running around other people’s worlds, whether it be the halls of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters or the or the End of Time. While fanfic and doujin productions seem to be embraced in Japan, the West has had a much more ambiguous relationship with it, which makes this new contest from Harper Collins and Angry Robot Books so interesting: they’re encouraging people to write short stories set in the universe of Lauren Beukes’ Moxyland novel, and up to three winners will have their stories published in Beukes’ next book, Zoo City, coming in May 2010. The contest ends on midnight 11 September 2009 (which I suppose means that 10 September is the last day). The announcement can be found here, the terms and conditions here, and some more information here. For the duration of the contest, you can read Moxyland at Authonomy or you can virtually browse the book. Of course you can also buy the book from Play.com, and for express delivery it is also available in ebook formats.

A few things prospective entrants should note: (a) you need to post your entries on the Authonomy page for Moxyland here (you can also see any entries already submitted which… seems kind of a strange way to run things) and that requires registration at Authonomy; (b) note that you don’t get monetary compensation if you win–the prize is publication and 5 copies of Zoo City; and (c) your story will be published under a Creative Commons 3 License.

Absence of royalties/monetary compensation aside, I have to admit it’s a very interesting promotion. Best of luck to everyone who intends to join!

Why isn't Winston here though? -_-

As posted over at Philippine Genre Stories and via comment from Bookmarked! here’s a number concerned book lovers can call if their precious books are being unjustly detained:

Hi, you should not have to file for exemption for items that are non-taxable. From my understanding, exemption is only filed if you or your organization is tax-exempt.

Please call Mr. Jaime Regala of the BOC IIPD-CIIS
(Internal Inquiry and Prosecution Division-Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service)
(632) 5274522

So a commenter over at the Philippine Genre Stories blog has raised the specter (pun not intended) of a necromantic revival of the Great Book Blockade (credit for that particular metaphor goes to the New Worlds Alliance twitter). You can get a summary of these new developments at the aforementioned PGS post, or over at the Philippine Online Chronicles.

While it is clear that once again there are forces once again attempting to keep the precious pulpy goodness from our grubby hands, and this is something we should not stand for, it would be best to know whom it is we’re actually fighting.

The Problem: People are being asked to either pay customs duties on imported books, or get an exemption from the DOF.

We can divide the problem in to two aspects then: (a) The duties; (b) The exemption requirement. In each case what we need to ask is a question every reciting law student dreads to hear: “What is your legal basis?”

[Legal analysis. Oh, what fun!]

The Duties:

If the customs officials are using DOF DO 17-09 (the legal basis for the Great Book Blockade) as a basis for imposing duties, then they are about as covered as the fairy tale emperor and his invisible duds: i.e. not at all. DOF DO 17-09 was quite explicitly suspended by DOF DO 27-09. For our purposes, and let me emphasize this, it does not matter that the DOF was “merely” suspended and not repealed, or amended–a suspended DO cannot be the basis for any government action, including the imposition of duties.DOF DO 27-09 returned us to, in its words, “the existing procedures and processes on tax and duty free importation of books prior to the effectivity of DO 17-09…”

Now, is there anything in the law/regulation prior to DO 17-09 that could be the basis of the imposition of customs duties on books? Er… no. I’m no tax lawyer so I could be wrong, but the entire reason that DO 17-09 became an issue was because it imposed duties where none had been imposed before. If we’d had a legal basis for duties on books prior to DO 17-09, then we’d never have noticed DO 17-09, and in fact DO 17-09 wouldn’t have been necessary. So I highly doubt that any issuance prior to DO 17-09 can be used as a legal basis to impose duties on books.

So. It seems to me that at the present there is no basis for the imposition of duties on books.

The Exemption Process:

Again, DO 17-09 cannot be used as a basis for requiring a DOF exemption prior to availing of tax-free importation, because DO 17-09 is in the legal equivalent of a coma: alive sure, but not able to do anything (or in this case, unavailable for use as a legal basis for any action).

Is there, however, something in the “existing procedures and processes on tax and duty free importation of books prior to the effectivity of DO 17-09″ that would require the acquisition of such exemption? Again, not that I know of… and there’s a simple reason for that. OK, remember we’ve established above that there is no legal basis prior to DO 17-09 for the imposition of duties on books? Good.

If there are no duties, there is nothing you need to “exempt” yourself from.

Before we speak of exemptions, we need to first ascertain whether or not a rule even applies. Let’s say an office security guard is hired to enforce one rule: that no one who wishes to enter the premises can do so without having a company I.D.. The exception is that if the person is Neil Gaiman, and he can prove he’s Neil Gaiman, then he should be allowed entry with or without I.D.. Should the prospective entrant not have a company I.D., nor be able to prove he is Neil Gaiman, then the guard is allowed to beat the entrant with a night stick.

Given that situation, the guard would be completely within his rights if he required the presentation of the company I.D. from any prospective entrant; and should the same not be given, the guard would be in his rights to require that the visitor prove he is, in fact, award-winning author Neil Gaiman.

However, if the guard saw an old lady passing in front of him on her way to the supermarket next door, and the guard then proceeded to beat her up because she neither had a company I.D. nor could prove she was Neil Gaiman, then I think we can all agree that the guard needs to be locked away somewhere far from civilized society. Poor grandma should not and cannot be required to produce, say, Neil Gaiman’s passport just to escape a beating, because the rule does not apply to her. She wasn’t trying to enter the damn office building! Likewise, as books are not covered by customs duties, one should not need to prove they are exempted from customs duties.

It is entirely possible (and not at all out of character) for there to exist some law or regulation requiring a poor book buyer to do just that. Until then though, there is a standing legal principle that while it is the burden of the tax-payer to prove he is exempted from a tax, this only comes after it has been established that a tax applies to him–and if I recall correctly it is the government that has the burden to prove that a tax, in general, applies.

Of course it’s one thing to say this is how a thing should be under the law, and another to say how it actually is in practice. Which brings us to the next topic:

What Is Going On?

Unless there’s been a new DO reviving or replicating DO 17-09, then I don’t think this is the Great Book Blockade back from the dead coma. What this is instead is evidence that certain government officials are trying to impose invalid customs duties on books, or trying to apply an invalid exemption requirement where none exists. Whether this is being done out of ignorance or corruption is probably something only the officials themselves know, but as Charles Tan mentioned before, this kind of “procedure” pre-dated the Book Blockade, and was not due to DO 17-09. If one recalls, this also happened to Chingbee Cruz and Dean Leonen of UP (I’m unclear as to whether those incidents were DO 17-09 related or not).

What Can Be Done?

I think we need to be clear that, as far as I know at least, there is no legal basis either for the duties or the exemption requirement. Even if you end up going through the bogus exemption process out of expedience, know that legally it should not, as far as I know, be required of you. The alleged “new EO” isn’t a solution either although it certainly couldn’t hurt.

The problem is not in the law, but in the practices of certain officials. As such, while I’ve mentioned this before, I’d like to reiterate that RockEd Philippines has been trying to gather proof of similar cases of illegal taxation–receipts, or even simple narrations of the events–so that Atty. Leonen or another able lawyer might be able to file the appropriate legal suit.

So in short if you find yourself being assessed for book duties, how you can help is by getting the names of those making the assessment, as well as their legal basis for the same, and giving the details of the incident to Rock Ed at info[at]rockedphilippines.org or contact them via these numbers:

Tel. No.: (632) 709-0792
Mobile: (63916) 409-2378
Telefax: (632) 376-2184