You perhaps know me as a novelist. Literature is one of the arts - in fact, the noblest of the arts. That is not my opinion; it was first expressed by the ancients. As art, literature has many similarities with the other art forms.
This is the harsh truth about us: not only do Filipinos ignore books, literature - we do not understand how important the arts are - not just to those of us who work at it, but to the nation as a whole.