The five books tagged as ‘subversive’ by some commissioners of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (Commission on Filipino Languages). Photo from Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. A government order stopping the publication and distribution of five books dubbed by Philippine authorities as “subversive” has been rescinded after a strong pushback by the Filipino literary and academic community against book censorship and repression. The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino [Commission on Filipino Languages] or KWF, a government agency under the Office of the President charged with promoting, preserving, and developing the country’s languages, withdrew its earlier order after sustained protests by the country’s leading academics and writers. The Commission ordered the banning of the following titles in Memorandum 2022-0663 on August 9, after a talk show in far-right mouthpiece Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) accused the books of “subversion” and red-tagged the authors as “communists”: Red-tagging is a term used in the Philippines referring to the practice of branding individuals as terrorists or communist rebels “without substantial proof of any unlawful conduct.” KWF Commissioner for Programs and Projects Carmelita Abdurahman and Commissioner for Operations and Finance Benjamin Mendillo penned the memo, which was also signed by three other KWF commissioners. As the country commemorates Buwan ng Wika, the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino has issued a memorandum calling on schools and libraries to pull out the following “subversive” books for being “anti-government.” @PhilippineStar @onenewsph pic.twitter.com/tCfhqkLJOj — Marc Jayson Cayabyab (@mjaysoncayabyab) August 11, 2022 In the SMNI program “Laban Kasama ang Bayan” [Fight with the Nation], Lorraine Badoy, former communications undersecretary during the Rodrigo Duterte administration, and other anti-communist spokespeople, pinpointed particular words, dialogue, and even reference entries found in the 5 books that they condemned as “terroristic.” Screenshot of footage from August 9, 2022 SMNI program labelling five Filipino books as subversive. The anti-communist spokespeople highlighted lines from award-winning Filipino playwright Malou Jacob’s play Teatro Political Dos, a collection of 5 plays. These lines simply describe the EDSA people power uprising that overthrew the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in February 1986 as “the best thing that happened after fifteen years of Martial Law.” Screenshot of footage from August 9, 2022 SMNI program labelling five Filipino books as subversive. Also highlighted are lines from Filipino fictionist and literature professor Rommel Rodriguez’s “Kalatas,” a collection of vignettes and reflections. The text simply mentions the Philippine realities of some Filipinos organizing armed revolution against the government: “May umakyat ng bundok upang humawak ng Sandata” [There are those who leave for the mountains to take up arms]. Screenshot of footage from August 9, 2022 SMNI program labelling five Filipino books as subversive. Scholar Dexter Cayanes’s “Tawid-diwa sa Pananagisag ni Bienvenido Lumbera,” a published thesis on the late Lumbera, a Philippine National Artist for Literature, is meanwhile singled-out for merely citing works by communist rebel leaders Jose Ma Sison and Julieta de Lima. Even reference entries of Marxist art critic Alice Guillermo and other academic works such as “Marxism and Literary History” were presented as proof of subversion. Screenshot of footage from August 9, 2022 SMNI program labelling five Filipino books as subversive. Dialogue from Don Pagusara’s stage-play “May Hadlang ang Umaga” depicting the historical circumstance of ordinary Filipinos talking about joining the armed struggle against the dictatorship is also tagged as already subversive in-itself. Pagusara is a multi-awarded playwright and poet writing in the Cebuano language and a former political detainee during the dictatorship years. Screenshot of footage from August 9, 2022 SMNI program labelling five Filipino books as subversive. The mere showing of social realities of the arrests of activists, hunger, violence, and poverty (“gutom, dahas, kahirapan”) during the martial law era in the setting of one of award-winning playwright and professor Reuel Aguila’s plays in the book “Labas” is also offered as proof of terrorism. In response to these accusations, the five authors penned a joint statement written in Filipino calling for the retraction of the false claims against them.