Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City has spoken out against the defacement of independent bookstores across Metro Manila this week.
Solidaridad Bookshop in Ermita, Manila and Popular Bookstore in Diliman, Quezon City were both vandalized and sprayed with red paint.
Popular Bookstore was defaced with the anti-communist tag, “NPA, Terorista (NPA, Terrorists).” NPA stands for New People’s Army, the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), dubbed by the United States as a terrorist organization.
Both shops are known to sell progressive and political literature.
“We stand against the ignorance and prejudice behind the defacement of the entrances of Popular Bookstore and Solidaridad Bookshop. For decades and through several administrations they have been purveyors of diverse and hard-to-find books,” Mt. Cloud wrote on social media.
“By making good books available to readers, these institutions perform a community service that we ourselves aspire to fulfill. This attack on bookshops reveals one thing about the perpetrators: damaging narrow-mindedness. The vandals should widen their horizons and READ.”
The late Filipino National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, who passed away in January, owned Solidaridad Bookshop and has been operating since 1964. Meanwhile, Popular Bookstore was opened by anti-Marcos businessman Joaquin Po in 1945 before daughter Geraldine took over as manager.
Geraldine told Coconuts, “Red-taggers do not want people to think, to be analytical. They just want people to be followers, to be on the ‘safe side,’ so that there will be no critical opposition to their political and economic agendas.”
READ: Independent book shop ‘Popular Bookstore’ vandalized, tagged as ‘communist terrorists’
