School books

One of the two stores at the foot of yesterday's pedestrian overpass from the Ateneo de Manila University is, appropriately enough, a branch of National Book Store (NBS), the Philippines' largest bookstore chain. When I was growing up, NBS sold almost nothing except textbooks and school supplies; anyone interested in other kinds of books had to look elsewhere. NBS has had to expand its literature selection during the past two decades because of intense competition, but whatever people think of the company, no one can deny that it provided Filipinos one great service. Over the decades, NBS has had contracts with American publishing houses to re-print their textbooks and reference books exclusively for the Philippine market. They are printed locally on inexpensive paper and sold for hundreds of pesos less than their higher-quality American counterparts which have to be shipped in. If it weren't for National Book Store's textbooks, the cost of private education in the Philippines (which is already prohibitively expensive for most Filipinos but much, much better than our public education system) would have been even higher.