The Great Book Blockade of 2009: Timeline and Readings

Per The Curious Couch, the Dean of the UP Law School, Marvic Leonen, is interested in filing a case. Please be aware that:

you do NOT have to pay taxes to claim your book purchases/packages at the post office. Books are tax-exempt. Marvic Leonen is interested in filing a case to put an end to this kind of fiasco and has asked me to dig up my old receipt to get the case going. I have spent the last hour or so trying to find the receipt, to no avail. I am usually very good at filing even the most irrelevant documents, and so I am starting to get that sinking feeling that I must’ve thrown it away. I’ll keep on looking for it, but in any case, if you’ve had a similar experience–paying taxes for books at the post office–and you still have the receipt, please get in touch with me at chingbee(dot)cruz(at)gmail(dot)com. I’d like to collect as many receipts of this kind as possible and turn them all over to Marvic.

"Where is your evidence? Bring it to the proper forum!" Here's an attempt to cobble together a timeline of events 1950: June 17 The Florence Agreement is concluded under the auspices of Unesco. How is this, and subsequent revisions to it, supposed to be interpreted? Narrowly, or broadly? The Unesco's own Guide to the Florence Agreement and Nairobi Protocol: Emphasizes the following:

Under the Agreement, books, newspapers, periodicals and many other categories of printed matter are granted duty-free entry. Printed music, maps and even tourist posters are similarly exempt. All the items of this annex to the Agreement, except architectural plans and designs, enjoy exemption from customs duties regardless of destination. Books are the most important category. The exemption granted to books is not subject to any qualifications as to their educational, scientific and cultural character.

That is, interpretation is supposed to be as broad as possible. 1952: August 2 President Elpidio Quirino signs the Florence Agreement. Unesco lists the formal Ratification of the Republic of the Philippines as having taken place on August 30, 1952. Although another Unesco link dates Philippines' signature on August 7, 1979 (this may be a discrepancy reflecting the Philippines' acceptance of the Nairobi Protocol?) 1957: June 22 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 1937, revising the tariff and customs laws of the country; it incorporates the undertakings of the Florence Agreement into Philippine law. 1973: September 3 Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 205 authorizing the republication of foreign books domestically if the prices of books becomes "so exorbitant as to be detrimental to the national interest." He also issues Presidential Decree No. 284 substituting existing provisions in the Customs and Tariff Code with the following provisions:

Section 1. Subsection (s) of Section 105 of Republic Act Numbered nineteen hundred thirty-seven, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows: "s. Economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical, and cultural books and/or publications: Provided, That those which may have already been imported but pending release by the Bureau of Customs at the effectivity of this Decree may still enjoy the privilege herein provided upon certification by the Department of Education and Culture that such imported books and/or publications are for economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical or cultural purposes or that the same are educational, scientific or cultural materials covered by the International Agreement on Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials signed by the President of the Philippine on August 2, 1952, or other agreements binding upon the Philippines. "Educational, scientific and cultural materials covered by international agreements or commitments binding upon the Philippine Government so certified by the Department of Educational and Culture. "Bibles, missals, prayer books, Koran, ahadith and other religious books of similar nature and extracts therefrom, hymnal and hymns from religious uses."

1976: November 26 The Nairobi Protocol to the Florence Agreement is signed. 1977: September 27 Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 1203 amending his earlier order, granting the payment of royalties to authors affected by the domestic republication of books. 1978: June 11 President Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 1464 consolidating existing Customs-related laws and decrees into the Tariff and Customs Code of 1978, including the following under Section 105, Conditional Duty-Free Imports:

s. Economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical, and cultural books and/or publications: Provided, That those which may have already been imported but pending release by the Bureau of Customs at the effectivity of this Decree may still enjoy the privilege herein provided upon certification by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports that such imported books and/or publications are for economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical or cultural purposes or that the same are educational, scientific or cultural materials covered by the International Agreement on Importation of Educational Scientific and Cultural Materials signed by the President of the Philippines on August 2, 1952, or other agreements binding upon the Philippines. Educational, scientific and cultural materials covered by international agreements or commitments binding upon the Philippine Government so certified by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports. Bibles, missals, prayer books, Koran, Ahadith and other religious books of similar nature and extracts therefrom, hymnal and hymns for religious uses;

1990: November 27 President Corazon Aquino issues Executive Order No. 438 imposing a 5% duty on all imported items except those enumerated as duty-free under Section 3 of the order, which includes "those conferred by effective international agreements to which the Government of the Republic of the Philippines is a signatory". 1995: June 7 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 8047, the Book Publishing Industry Development Act, which among other things, exempts foreign and domestic books from the Value Added Tax (VAT):

Sec. 12. Incentives for Book Development. — ...In the case of tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing, the Board and its duly authorized representatives shall strictly monitor the quality and volume of imported books and materials as well as their distribution and the utilization of the said imported materials. The Board shall also recommend to the proper prosecuting agencies any violations of the conditions of the duty-free importation. Books, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, including book publishing and printing, as well as its distribution and circulation, shall be exempt from the coverage of the expanded value added tax law.

The Law also mandates the following:

Sec. 4. National Book Policy. — The National Book Policy shall conform to the policy provided for in Section 2 hereof and shall have the following basic purposes and objectives: (c) to ensure an adequate, affordable and accessible supply of books for all segments of the population;... (j) to reaffirm and ensure the country's commitment to the UNESCO principle of free flow of information and other related provisions as embodied in the Florence Agreement and in other similar international agreements;...

2003: Roland Benzon notes in a May 6 at Philippine Genre Stories comment that attempts to tax the importation of books were already taking place at this time:

so i have shipped books and magazines by surface and air since the 80s, all for personal consumption and collection; some donated to public libraries. all tax-free. as recent as 2001, i air-shipped books from amazon. air freight is pricey, but the books were not taxed. i first encountered book taxation around 2003, when i claimed a parcel of books from the makati post office. citing the florence agreement and my long history of importing books, i argued my case. the postal clerk just played dumb, and countered with "new law" and "just doing our job". in disgust, i told them to return the books. i refused to be a victim. attempting to bypass the post office, i ordered books for door-to-door delivery. i was more willing to pay a premium than fill pockets of crooks. but when dhl delivered the books, same thing: customs duties. in resignation of the inescapable, i paid the taxes and vowed never to ship by air again. i do not remember the taxes, but i can tell you this much: it was not 1% or 5%, which i wouldn't have blinked at. it was 15%, at least! heck, it might have even been close to 50%.

2005: January 25 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 9335 providing for "a Rewards and Incentives Fund and a Revenue Performance Evaluation Board" for the Bureaus of Customs and Internal Revenue; The Trojan Bore suggests this may have provided the motivation for officials to seek every means possible to meet revenue targets. 2008: September 23 My entry on how Post Office and Customs attempts to levy 5% duty on a shipment of books, plus VAT (see a similar experience in The Curious Couch and in Boomarked!). BIR officials opine no such levies are warranted. 2009 The Great Book Blockade (for additional details see Philippine Genre Stories, Bibliophile Stalker, and Bahay Talinhaga): January 26 Air shipments of books are stopped and held by Customs authorities. Cause? As reported by Robin Hemley,

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer... an international best seller, had apparently attracted the attention of customs officials. When an examiner named Rene Agulan opened a shipment of books, he demanded that duty be paid on it... Mr. Agulan told the importer that because the books were not educational (i.e., textbooks) they were subject to duty.

January 27 Department of Finance tells Customs to release the books; "but their order was ignored by the aforementioned examiner Rene Agulan." Bahay Talinhaga goes on to suggest this provided the impetus for the bureaucracy to confer "and eventually, Customs and the Dept. of Finance, found common ground on this issue." Hemley summarizes the goings-on as follows:

Throughout February and March, bookstores seemed on the verge of getting their books released—all their documents were in order, but the rules kept changing. Now they were told that all books would be taxed: 1 percent for educational books and 5 percent for noneducational books. A nightmare scenario for the distributors; they imagined each shipment being held for months as an examiner sorted through the books. Obviously, most would simply pay the higher tax to avoid the hassle. Distributors told me they weren't "capitulating" but merely paying under protest. After all, customs was violating an international treaty that had been abided by for over 50 years. Meanwhile, booksellers had to pay enormous storage fees. Those couldn't be waived, they were told, because the storage facilities were privately owned (by customs officials, a bookstore owner suggested ruefully). One bookstore had to pay $4,000 on a $10,000 shipment.

March 5 Date of a letter to to "Atty Pasion-Flores of the NBDB, the examiner refused to release the books despite the fact that all previous requirements had been met, including a 'certificate of membership with NBDB.'” Somewhere during this time, officials from the Department of Finance apparently engaged in consultations with members of Congress. March 16 Usec. Sales meets booksellers. As reported by Robin Hemley:

Customs Undersecretary Espele Sales explained the government's position to a group of frustrated booksellers and importers in an Orwellian PowerPoint presentation, at which she reinterpreted the Florence Agreement as well as Philippine law RA 8047, providing for "the tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing." For lack of a comma after the word "books," the undersecretary argued that only books "used in book publishing" (her underlining) were tax-exempt... Likewise, with the Florence Agreement, she argued that only educational books could be considered protected by the U.N. treaty. Customs would henceforth be the arbiter of what was and wasn't educational. "For 50 years, everyone has misinterpreted the treaty and now you alone have interpreted it correctly?" she was asked. "Yes," she told the stunned booksellers.

As reported by Kenneth Yu:

After this meeting with the Congressmen, Undersecretary Sales and her team also met with various booksellers. She said that her meeting with them was cordial, good, and respectful, as she made all these details clear to them. In other words, her meeting with them went well with no untoward incidents, which is why she was surprised at what came out in the Hemley article. Everything was spelled clearly to the booksellers.

March 17 First of the stopped shipments are released "a day after Undersecretary Sales spoke with importers and book sellers, and storage fees were paid." According to Hemley:

The day after the first shipment of books was released, an internal memo circulated in customs congratulating themselves for finally levying a duty on books, though no mention was made of their pride in breaking an international treaty.

March 24 The Department of Finance issues Department Order No. 17-09, published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Easter Sunday, April 12: The Department Order institutes a regime in which all books brought into the country are deemed subject to Customs duties until or unless a complicated process of obtaining dispensations from the authorities are resorted to; and which further assumes that titles must be in small quantities and not for sale, barter, or trade to qualify for any Customs duty exemption. The Order furthermore institutes an elaborate series of definitions for books covered by existing Duty-free importation privileges, which are definitions different from the broad classifications in the Florence Agreement; and furthermore, restricts the interpretation of the National Book Development Act to apply only to the duty-free importation of books "used for book publishing." The duties imposed are 1% for "educational, technical, scientific, historical or cultural books" and 5% for all other books, according to the Department of Finance's new definitions. A backgrounder on how the Order above was put together. Here is Usec. Sales' version of events as reported by Kenneth Yu:

First of all, Undersecretary Sales and her team at the DOF spent a lot of time studying the rules/laws/regulations involving this matter beforehand, and found that in Sec. 105 of the Tariffs and Customs Codes, there really is a provision for a 1% duty on imported books ("educational, cultural, etc.") that are for sale and for profit, and she said that the Florence Agreement was addressed here in this specific section. This 1% has been in existence since way long ago, and in fact, has not been implemented for that long a time. After Undersecretary Sales and her team studied all these laws, the results of this was that this regulation should be followed because it is the law, and forthwith published this information on Easter Sunday 2009, with implementation to follow 15 days after Easter Sunday. From what I understood of what she said, there will be no duty only if these imported books are donations to public schools, readers' groups, etc., that is, if the books imported are not for sale or for profit. This 1% is for, to use her words, "control/monitorinig" of the imported books coming in. She used the example that if a bookseller brings in P100,000.00 worth of books, the duty on this is only P1,000.00. She told me that she would like to also make clear that vat on books is still 0%, no matter what.

Now, if a book or title does not fall under "cultural, educational, etc.", then that duty goes up to 5%. However, she points out that the DOF is not the one who determines a title's labeling of whether it is "educational, cultural, etc." She said that this labeling belongs to other organizations (she mentioned the DepEd and Unesco)... I also asked her about books ordered, say, on Amazon, and picked up at the post office. Should that duty be paid there too? She said, "Yes, but only if that hasn't been included in the original payment." In other words, check your receipt and your emails of the online transaction. If duties had already been paid via Amazon or whatever online bookseller, then print that receipt/email and bring that proof with you to show that duties have already been paid. If however your receipt/email doesn't show this duty, then you are obliged to pay for that duty.

Abdon Balde says Rep. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. proposed amendments to the Department Order but these were not viewed favorably by Usec. Sales. Here is Kenneth Yu's report on Usec. Sales' mentioning consultations with Congress:

These laws which she and her team researched were brought up in a respectful meeting with various Congressmen. She said that at first, a number of them were against it, but when she explained that this duty has been in existence in law for so long and really has just not been implemented, they agreed to it. She said that if the Congressmen really want to make it 0% duty for all, then they must pass that law first before the DOF can implement it. In other words, the legislative part of the gov't, Congress, has to pass it into law before the DOF, the executive branch that "executes" these laws, can enforce it. As of now, after all their study, Undersecretary Sales and her team have seen that this duty exists in law, and they are doing their job in enforcing it.

April 27 The Department of Finance Order goes into effect. May 1 Robin Hemley's The Great Book Blockade of 2009 is published online in Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency. May 5 Kenneth Yu publishes the results of his interview of Undersecretary Salas, giving the Department of Finance version of events for the first time (and so far, the only time). May 6 Louie Aguinaldo establishes the Facebook group, FILIPINOS AGAINST THE TAXATION OF BOOKS BY CUSTOMS. May 7 Jessica Zafra in her blog publishes the Position Paper of the Book Development Association of the Philippines Re: Tax and Duty Free Importation of Books May 24 RockEd will hold a "book giveaway": Here's a roundup of bloggers who've blogged about the issue: andrewdrilon, Animetric's World, Bahay Talinhaga, Bet.cha.by.golly.world., Bibliophile Stalker, Bitter Pills & Breathing Spaces, Bookmarked!, Bittergrace, Fish in a bubble, Star in a bowl, castles in the air, Daily Musings, From Donelle's point of view, everyday reads, Glass half-empty, Hibernating Bear, Hmmm... that's interesting, Indolent Indio, Internet451, i hate twilight, Jarminator :-), Journal of the Jester-in-Exile, JessicarulestheUniverse, Karotitay.com , Komikero Comics Journal, Life is like a game of poker, Love and Choices, mzeid, Mnemosyne Writes, opinionated thoughts of a cubicle dweller, Original SIM, >> Press Start >>, Purpose Driven Paul, Random Thoughts, Refine Me, My Thoughts Exactly, Notes of an Anesthesioboist, Pine for Pine, Pop ups of my mind, Philippine Genre Stories, Random bits of life and media, Street but Sweet, Scratching Post>>, The Trojan Bore, THE GRIN WITHOUT A CAT, The Age of Brillig, The Curious Couch, The Pelican Spectator, The Misadventures of Wonderboy and His Broken Hearts, The Pork Sword Chronicles, The Unlawyer, To the Tale, and Other Such Concerns, Twilight Sucks, Twilight Coven Philippines, Tales of a Backpacker, touyatouya, The Pageman in Kabul,  uneditedmara, What lies beyond the furthest reaches of the sky?, Wandering Star, vinzmondi, xairylle, and see also On The Book Blockade put up by the UP Hobby Gamers' Circle.