Senator Loren Legarda
MANILA, Philippines – Senator Loren Legarda, the visionary and project principal behind the Philippines’ Guest of Honour role at the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair, convened a dialogue in Manila on May 27, 2025, with concerned Filipino authors, publishers, and creatives calling for a boycott of the Fair in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
“The Philippines’ Guest of Honour role in the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair will never come at the expense of our humanity or anyone’s right to dissent,” said Legarda.
“We are present precisely because we believe in the power of literature as a force for truth, and that it must not fall silent in times of injustice.”
Signed on August 18, 2023, in Davao City, the Guest of Honour agreement between Frankfurt Book Fair President and CEO Juergen Boos and National Book Development Board (NBDB) marked a historic moment for Philippine literature. The Philippines is only the second Southeast Asian country to hold this distinction in the world’s largest book fair, after Indonesia in 2015.
“Our participation aligns with no agenda but our own: a firm assertion of our identity and stories, including those born of struggle, resistance, and survival, shaped by a long history of colonization once toppled by words that stirred Filipinos to freedom,” Legarda emphasized.
The four-term senator convened the dialogue to encourage dissenting voices and provide space for local advocates of the boycott.
Unflinching in her stance, Legarda reiterated, “My position has always been clear: I condemn all forms of violence, the continued illegal occupation of Palestinian land, the systemic oppression of the Palestinian people, and the entrenched inequalities and suffering imposed upon them.”
She has been a consistent voice for solidarity with Palestinians, expressing disagreement with the Philippine abstention during the October 2023 UN resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza; working closely with the Department of Justice’s Refugees and Stateless Persons Protection Unit (DOJ-RSPPU) to monitor the refugee status applications of displaced Palestinians who have sought safety in the country; calling for sustainable peace solutions during the approval of the January 2025 ceasefire deal in Gaza; and condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s alarming proposal to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip, along with the relocation of its Palestinian residents.
“I understand the call to boycott and respect the convictions behind it. I will never seek to silence it, nor offer a counter-argument. But walking away is not the only form of resistance. Sometimes, showing up—to speak, to challenge, to engage in critical discourse, and to insist on being heard—is the more difficult and consequential act. By taking our place and creating space for hard, necessary truths, we demonstrate what has long been our strength as Filipinos: the courage to confront injustice with moral clarity and resolve. We wield the peaceful language of our craft to affirm the principles we refuse to abandon, for ourselves and for others.”
The Fair’s motto, “The imagination peoples the air,” is drawn from Noli Me Tangere by Philippine national hero Dr. José Rizal, the book that sparked the first anti-colonial revolution in Southeast Asia.