LODESTAR BY Danton Remoto The Philippine Star April 05, 2010 12:00 AM Art and culture section The last five years have seen the rise of publishers coming from outside “imperial Manila.” Some of them are affiliated with university presses, while others are run by young, maverick publishers who want to lob new, in-your-face books into the mainstream. Imprenta Igbaong belongs to the latter, its steady stream of books coming out from San Jose de Buenavista in Antique. Their latest offering is Anghel Sang Capiz, a controversial book of gay stories in Hiligaynon and Filipino, written by John Iremil Teodoro. This is the ninth book of Teodoro, who has won the National Book Award for the Essay in 2007 for the appropriately titled book, Pagmumuni-muni at Pagtatalak ng Sirenang Nagpapanggap na Prinsesa. Teodoro has the MFA in Creative Writing (with high distinction) from De La Salle University Manila, and presently teaches at Miriam College. He is also a member of the Alon Literature Collective. ...

BY Danton Remoto Remote control Views and analysis section www.abs-cbnnews.com Even if Rep. Bienvenido Abante of Manila’s sixth district is still bent on blocking the Anti-Discrimination bill in the 14th Congress, this congressman who sought the banning of the film The Da Vinci Code in Manila would turn pink with prissy dismay at the sight of our bookstores, where the hottest books flying off the shelves are gay. Whether you are talking about National Bookstore, Fully Booked, or your friendly bargain-basement tiangge in the mall, gay-related titles are a smash. The Ladlad series that Neil Garcia of UP and myself have edited had never gone out of print, since the first edition came out in 1994. Our other books – Black Silk Pajamas, Buhay Bading, Misterios, and Pulotgata, along with those of Jessica Zafra and Bob Ong, dominate the Billboard Charts of shelves in National Bookstore. My new gay books now in the bookstores include Ladlad 3 and Rampa: Gay Essays in Filipino, as well as the ...