PVLF 2025

Philippines Role at Frankfurt Book Fair Sparks Debate

As Guest of Honour at FBM 2025, the Philippines faces growing boycott calls over Israel ties, stirring powerful dissent from writers and publishers alike.
on Jun 06, 2025

The Frankfurt Book Fair (German: Frankfurter Buchmesse) is considered the largest world trade fair for books, standing on sheer numbers of publishing houses participating in the event annually. The 77th edition, taking place from October 15 to 19, is likely the Philippines' largest participation since it was appointed the official Guest of Honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse (FBM) 2025.

Being a Guest of Honour (GOH) entails having a dedicated exhibition hall and literary program prepared for the guest nation. The Philippines, represented by officials from the National Book Development Board (NBDB), signed its official GOH agreement in a ceremony in Davao in August of 2023, with FBM being represented by its head, Juergen Boos. This is only the second time that a Southeast Asian country became a GOH, with the first being Indonesia in 2015.

"We want to genuinely be seen and to present the best of our arts and culture and books. It's not simply (about) a commodity. That's why I prefer to use the term 'book trade.' When you trade, it's not merely monetary, creative content. It's a cultural exchange each time you receive a book," Karina Bolasco, former proprietor of Anvil Publishing for over two decades and present director of the Ateneo de Manila University Press, explained during a March 2025 interview with Esquire Philippines.

But Frankfurt Book Fair, far more so the Philippines' involvement as GOH, is controversial.

Call to Boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair

Publishers for Palestine, an international solidarity group of almost 600 publishers across 50 countries, urges an industry-wide boycott of FBM.

"The Publishers for Palestine boycott call follows the Fair failing to respond to its complicity in the German state and corporate sponsorship of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, as well as programming that is blind to Israel's occupation and apartheid regime. The Fair has also commemorated conferring the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade upon American journalist Anne Applebaum, and welcomed the author—who in public has lauded Israel's illegal bombing of Palestinian media outlets as part of journocide—to the Fair's 2024 event," they stated in an official release posted on January 30, 2025.

In their boycott call, Publishers for Palestine issued four fundamental demands from the Frankfurt Book Fair:

condemn the regime of apartheid and genocide of Israel in Gaza and support the human rights of the Palestinian people;

refuse to cooperate with complicit Israeli book publishers, including by refusing their participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair;

condemn the attacks on Palestinian writers, journalists, and scholars—and recognize that those attacks are part of a genocidal project to erase Palestinian life and culture;

and develop programming that features Palestinian writers, publishers, and stories prominently.

Publishers for Palestine also referred to the Fair's "deep ethical inconsistencies" in their release, including: "a 2023 commitment to add more Israeli programming, in striking contrast to its 2022 exclusion of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. FBM's substantiated complicity relationships with complicit Israeli institutions and corporations and its German state entanglement include partnerships with German multibillion-dollar publishing multinationals Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA., both of which have multimillion-dollar Israeli tech, AI, surveillance, and security technology investment portfolios. Holtzbrinck also serves as host of the Frankfurt Book Fair's Jerusalem International Book Forum Breakfast, a well-established annual fixture."

The group is also extending an invitation to publishers globally "who believe in justice, freedom of expression, and the potency of the word" to endorse and sign the Statement for Solidarity, originally published on November 3, 2023.

"We acknowledge the Palestinian people's courage, creativity, and resistance, their intense love of their ancestral lands, and their insistence on not being erased, or becoming quiet, in the face of Israel's genocidal violence. In the face of the dark complicity of Western media and cultural industries, we find hope ignited by the tide of bodies and voices that keep arriving, writing, speaking, singing, fighting back against lies, and forging community and solidarity across social media and on our streets, globally," the statement says.

Up to April 15, 2025, eight Philippine independent presses have already signed the Statement of Solidarity: Isang Balangay Media Productions (Balangay Books), Gantala Press, Everything's Fine, Kwago Publishing Lab, Lomboy Press, Paper Trail Projects, Aklat Alamid, and Alfredo F. Tadiar Library.

Statements of Publishers and Authors from the Philippines

Philippine publishers and authors had always been aware of the nuances of the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 2024, numerous invitations were issued to many of them to join the Philippine delegation.

Kristine Ong Muslim, poet and fiction author, posted in an open note (May 30, 2024) her invitation letter:

"I'm displaying this, young Filipino writers, so that you know you always have an option and you can make the correct option at the right moment. And that ethical and moral option involves a cost, it may be accompanied by the loss of a career-enhancing experience or something you have yearned for.".

On the other hand, you can take the easy lucrative careerist path, use Filipino taxpayers' money to travel to Frankfurt, finance a racist institution that facilitates the killing of Palestinians, human beings whom you consider less than human--but naturally, you will not say so publicly.

Or say no now, get a backbone, be human and global in your solidarity and stand behind the boycott, sacrifice a bit of the ephemeral things you've talked yourself into believing are important. Perhaps they're not so important after all.

Jumper Cable Chronicles: Si Santa Anita writer EK Gonzales has also withdrawn from the catalog of FBM and posted in a May 19 post:

"I am aware of the event's direct support for Israel and its government's and people's g/enocidal purposes and attacks against Palestine. I am aware of its denial of support in various forms against Palestine.

By now virtually all hospitals and most of the health provisions in especially G/aza have been wiped out. No food and supplies have been permitted into the area for 75 days and ongoing, in addition to previous strict restrictions.". What is more probably true is 100,000 and many, much more are dead now through active assaults by weapons and passive assaults by starvation, housing deprivation, and denial of medical care. Over 200 media workers have been murdered, the highest figure since they began tallying. This is the livestreamed g/enocide and we are moving too slowly.

The Palestine solidarity is the position that both myself and translator Xi Zuq share. I am aware that this is something I can do, however insignificant, apart from active personal brands boycott and personal information sharing.

Should Haya, Dino, and Anita gain attention outside our nation, then it has to be done the right ways. If that does happen, I will be thankful if it is the right principled ways."

A declaration by Komikeros For Palestine is also being promoted to support the international call for boycotting the book fair.

"We komikeros who are always concerned about whatever is happening call for the local komiks industry, as well as the wider Philippine publishing industry, to boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair in accordance with the international Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The BDS movement seeks to apply global pressure on Israel, through economic, diplomatic, cultural, and other forms, as part of the general campaign to achieve Palestinian national liberation and bring an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine," they added. The statement of the komikero group is also requested to sign.

Senator Loren Legarda, a member of the Philippine Guest of Honour Committee, had called for a dialogue among Filipino writers, publishers, and creators on May 27, 2025, at the National Museum of Fine Arts. Position papers on the boycott were read (and made available online) by the participants in the forum.

Here are some of the quotes with complete sentences published publicly by the concerned parties as well (in no specific order):

From Faye Cura, Gantala Press publisher and a member of the Publishers for Palestine network: "I take this opportunity to explain just how the Frankfurt Book Fair is involved in the genocide and why a Boycott is the most advisable action for publishers. Figures are based on an exhaustive report by Mondoweiss.".

The Fair is closely entwined with the complicit German state, that is, the second largest arms supplier to Israel. The funds are sourced from the German state as well as exhibitor and attendee contracts and registrations. Thus by visiting the complicit Fair and as its Guest of Honor, the Philippines has also given financial and cultural assistance to the genocide.

Cura clarified that two of the "Big Five" publishing houses, Macmillan Publishers and Penguin Random House, are under German multinationals Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and Bertelsmann SE & Co.L. Both of which have "millions of investments in Israeli tech, AI, surveillance, and security technologies."

The complete statement may be accessed on the website of Gantala Press. Gantala, established in 2015 in Metro Manila, is an "independent, non-profit, volunteer-run Filipina feminist press that puts women's stories and issues at the forefront of [their] projects (publications, small press fairs, discussions and workshops) and in [their] involvement in people's movements."

Karl Castro, artist and book designer: "The day that I got the invitation to this forum is the day that the Department of Foreign Affairs called for 'the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance' to Palestinians in Gaza, reiterating the role and position of the United Nations in this crisis. Much was left unspoken in this brief and very late statement—no reference to genocide, no reference to who was hindering, who was creating the humanitarian crisis in the first place. Yet it is the state of Israel which prohibited the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, declaring it a terrorist organization and killing over 300 of its employees. Last year, 124 of the UN's 181 members voted to put an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. The Philippines voted yes. Germany abstained. The United States, Israel's best ally, voted no.".

At least 50,000 Palestinians have been murdered over the last two years in this genocide, 70 percent of whom are women and children. To put that into perspective, it is equivalent to killing half of the trade visitors to the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Evidently, we have a human rights crisis of monumental proportions, one that must make humanity halt its progress and rethink its values and methods of proceeding.

What can we say about the demand to boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair?

Castro stressed that "posing it as a yes-or-no question may be too narrow." The validity of both sides, in his opinion, should be preserved. "This Honor is not ceremonial; it bears the weight of conscience." He cautioned the GOH team that "Frankfurt is not the world. For every platform we enter, we must ask: who is not here? And how do we speak up for them—those whose voices are absent, but whose imaginations fill the air?"

Ergoe Tinio, Editor-in-Chief of CANVAS - Center for Art, New Ventures & Sustainable Development, explained in her message to the FBF GOH staff that what she said was her own and not the views of CANVAS. "I would like to speak on my own, not only as a children's writer and editor, but also as an activist and advocate for peasant rights."

"We find ourselves in a special situation as Guest of Honor to make our presence dependent on such a statement. In the context of today and at this stage of world history, a statement of concern would be the minimalistic articulation of humanity, which the Frankfurt Book Fair still declines to make.".

I expect that the GOH team will respond that their hands are tied because Frankfurt Book Fair authorities will claim that their hands are tied, since there are contentious laws in Germany regarding what constitutes anti-Semitic expression.

But it cries out to be noted that whereas we metaphorically say our hands are tied, there are Palestinian hands tied literally if they are at all still attached to a body, which is alive but dead sure to be so. The figure of the dead is around a conservative estimate of 60,000 with some estimates leaning towards twice that number, where 80 percent are non-military deaths.

Tinio questioned that even if the GOH delegation claimed delegates are 'free to express' their advocacies, their "right to express pro-Palestine sentiments will be respected and protected at FBM."

Her own statement, also uploaded on Facebook using art cards, concluded with a demand to stand in unity with the Palestinian people by "withdrawing support from all institutions trying to take away their rights as human beings and as a nation."

Adam David, of the small press expo Better Living Through Xeroxography, remembered that year, 1985, when a network of writers, visual artists, musicians, and performers signed and published a statement endorsing then-president Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. It also provided a rundown of the promises made by the elder Marcos to our cultural institutions to be kept when he succeeds.

"I think they co-signed the statement to politically protect the institutions where they worked and represented. Trabaho lang," David wrote in the statement that he read during the forum with Legarda. The same endorsement makes a similar parallelism with the FBM issue.

"Today, tempted by visions of prestige and monetary gain – opportunities – in Frankfurt Book Messe, cultural workers once more walk past the Rubicon toward a crossroads (hopefully to Damascus - from river to Syrian city). The most compelling rationale for crossing the picket line this time is losing opportunities to access a global base of readers hungry to learn about the culture of territories they had previously colonized or under the charm offensive of their neo-colonial enterprise, where past pronouncements of solidarity with Palestine are covered by the refrain of 'trabaho lang.'

There is no "trabaho lang" in cultural work. Culture is the way of humanity to address itself and whatever it wishes to say about itself. For better or for worse, cultural workers such as us determine how we would have our country and our people be viewed and understood and remembered by our countrymen and women and also by the world. There is no "trabaho lang" against genocide.

Ani Rosa Almario (Adarna House Vice President), Karina Bolasco (Ateneo de Manila University Press Director), Kristian Cordero (Savage Mind Creative Director), Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz (past chair of NBDB and co-head of the GOH committee), and Nida Ramirez (Avenida Books Founder) asserted the "right to dissent as fundamental in any democratic and just society" in their collective statement.

"We see the moral clarity and profound conviction of the call. As a people who have known colonialism ourselves, we cannot avert our eyes. We are among the many voices denouncing the continuing attack on Palestinian life and freedom, and the established systems of oppression that make it possible.".

Concurrently, we declare that the Philippines' Guest of Honour appearance in the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair, officially acquired in August 2023, is a declaration of our identity and stories that make us who we are. It is not a taking of any foreign side, but rather an independent and conscious choice to showcase the richness of the Filipino story, one forged by hundreds of years of survival, resistance, and striving for freedom. This is an exercise in expression and truth-speaking.

After all, Filipinos' literature has never been objective. Just as Dr. José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere once fired the first anti-colonial revolution in Southeast Asia, so too must literature now continue to be a source of truth, even and especially when truth is disregarded.

Our presence in the Fair will not be removed from the pain of the world, but an encounter with it. In narrating the Filipino experience, we do not leave behind others who are still struggling to tell their own. The gentle voice of our art can question, probe, criticize, move, and inspire. It has been the language of waking up for a very long time, and it is a language that we will speak again.

We stand with complete solidarity on the side of humanity."

After the dialogue, Legarda released a statement, citing the fair's motto "The imagination peoples the air," which is drawn from Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.

"I hear the call to boycott and honor the convictions that drive it. I will never try to silence it, nor present an alternative argument. But to walk away is not the only act of resistance. At times, to show up--to speak, to question, to engage, to participate in critical conversation, and to insist upon being heard--is the harder and more significant act. By taking our place and making space for hard, hard truths, we show what has always been our strength as Filipinos: the courage to meet injustice with moral clarity and determination. We deploy the peaceful rhetoric of our profession to uphold the ideals we cannot abandon, for ourselves and others."