Roaming around the busy streets in Metro Manila, screams of vendors usually fill the day in the marketplace, pleading buyers to purchase their products to finally call it a day. But as you wander the quietest places here, the sellers’ advocacies for books and education get the loudest.
Instead of selling typical goods, Hernando Guanlao and AJ Laberinto chose different pathway and conveyed themselves in giving and selling books in streets and underpass, thinking that these books are instruments to awaken the youth’s resting consciousness.
Life, Lessons & Library
After abandoning his job and breaking away from a mundane path, Hernando Guanlao also known as Mang Nanie followed his heart and started a 24/7 public street library located in Makati, and presently identified as the Reading Club 2000.
Mang Nanie started sharing his personal book collections to the community since 2000. With his DIY sign ‘Free Reading to the Public’, he continues this advocacy as he aims to give 200 books a day to children in many parts of the country.
“Pinili kong bigyan yung mga bata kasi sila yung mga makakaappreciate ng mga ganitong bagay, kahit anong ibigay mo masaya sila, alam kong nageenjoy sila,” he shared.
For him, balance is the key to success and that’s his purpose “Kaya nga educating one is useless unless we educate all for the better life. Kung ikaw lang ang umasenso it’s useless. Kailangang isama mo lahat for the better life. Yung mga books naman na nabasa mo, ipamana mo rin sa iba kasi the more we learn books and read books, the more we know,” he explained gleefully.
Temporary Closure, Permanent Connections
AJ Laberinto, on the other hand, started the underground bookstore with his friends in 2007. It opened doors of opportunity to build a community of readers as they interact with different types of people, either looking for reference books unavailable to the market or plain skimming through pages to pass time.
“Ilang generation na din ang mga nakilala namin, ang magandang experience din may mga crème of the crop of the society na bumibili samin noon. Mga dating estudyante na naging architech, may sariling negosyo at successful na, masaya lang na may mga bagay na naicontribute na kami,” he shared.
However, fate has something in store for the underground bookstore, for despite being affected by Mayor Isko Moreno’s clearing operations, customers felt their impact and appealed of its return. “Nagulat nalang kami tumawag si Mayor Isko at gusto kaming pabalikin gawa nga ng mga request ng mga customers namin, but we have to comply with the legal documents” he exclaimed in his gratified tone.
Knowing that even the chapter of Underground bookstore had been paused for a while, still AJ and his friends never stop with this endeavor, excited to come back to the underpass they once considered home for 12 long years.
Indeed, one could not buy education, but there are some who could help the youth to acquire knowledge even in the places you could not imagine. For Mang Nanie and AJ, their only wish is to awake the fading interest of teenagers to books, and be the minds of the country’s future leaders.
THE ECHOES 