About the Philippines as Guest of Honour
The Philippines takes center stage as Guest of Honour at the 77th Frankfurt Book Fair 2025. This national initiative is made possible through the collaboration of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the National Book Development Board, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of Hon. Senator Loren Legarda.
A Collaborative Effort by
Our History
Called “the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance to European colonialism,” Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere tells the story of Crisostomo Ibarra and his life, intertwined with the Philippines’ struggle against the cruelty and corruption of the Spanish colonial government. In his book Brains of the Nation, National Artist Resil Mojares said that the publication of Noli Me Tangere in 1887 was “a pivotal moment in Philippine intellectual history” and that it was “radically seditious in having been written by a native in a manner that actualizes in Europe’s own discursive form, the capacity of the Filipino to comprehend, represent, and hence direct [their] own society.”
Rizal’s novels, Noli Me Tangere and its sequel El Filibusterimo, still hold sway in Philippine literature today. Their ideas of politics, nationalism, and social observation were so powerful that they were proscribed by the Spanish colonial government but circulated among the people. For his perceived subversions, Rizal was exiled and executed by the colonial government in 1896, yet his works have lit a fire inside Filipinos and their dissident consciousness.
Rizal’s friend Valentin Ventura wrote to Rizal from Paris, noting the effects that Noli has been having on the ground: “[your] campaign in the Philippines has not been completely in vain.”
Since the Noli, many iterations of the Filipino imagination have continued to animate Filipino literature, one that will be presented anew and amplified as the Philippines assumes its role as the Guest of Honour of the 2025 Frankfurter Buchmesse (FBM), globally known as the Frankfurt Book Fair, though the path is not one without challenges.
The First Participation
The first-ever National Book Development Board (NBDB) participation in the FBM was in 1998. Forty-five publishers displayed 302 book titles under the theme Centennial of the Philippine Independence. The Philippine stand was eight square meters.
The Philippines continued to participate for two years until 2000, and it only resumed its participation in 2015. NBDB sent two delegates, then NBDB Chair Flor Marie Sta. Romana Cruz and Executive Director III Graciela Mendoza Cayton, who had gone on an exploratory visit the year before, in 2014.
Since there was no budget for designing the country stand, Karina Bolasco, then Director of Ateneo De Manila University Press and NBDB Board member, reached out to Senator Loren Legarda in 2015 as she knew the senator to be one who was committed to passionately supporting the arts and culture sector. The Senator helped by referring to an agency that could provide support to the participants. Since then, Senator Legarda has given the NBDB additional financial support for the Philippine participation in the FBM.
This also marked the beginning of the Philippines’ campaign to become Guest of Honour.
The Road to Becoming Guest of Honour
Senator Legarda became the project visionary behind the country’s bid for the Guest of Honour in 2015. Bolasco informed her of the FBM and its importance.
Senator Legarda met with FBM officials led by Juergen Boos, President and CEO of the FBM, during their visit to Manila. In the same year, the Philippines submitted its Letter of Intent for Guest of Honour through then NBDB Chairperson Romana-Cruz.
In another meeting with Boos in Frankfurt, Senator Legarda was accompanied by then Philippine Ambassador to Germany Theresa de Vega, Deputy Consul General Emil Fernandez, NBDB Chair Sta. Romana-Cruz, NBDB Board Member Bolasco, while the latter was accompanied by FBM Vice President Claudia Kaiser. Senator Legarda inquired about the requirements for bids for the Guest of Honour country.
Senator Legarda again met with the FBMr officials in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions focused on how the pandemic had affected the bids, but the Senator emphasized that the Philippines remained committed to complying with the requirements for becoming a Guest of Honour. It was during this meeting that the year to become Guest of Honour had to be delayed to 2025 due to the pandemic.
In June 2023, Senator Legarda met again with the FBM Officials. This time, Boos announced that the FBM Board had approved the proposal for the Philippines to become GoH in 2025. Administrative requirements were discussed again during this meeting.
On August 18, 2023, the official Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Philippines as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair was signed in Davao City by FBM officials, headed by Juergen Boos, and the NBDB, led by Chair Dante Francis Ang II.
Once the Guest of Honour MOA was finalized, it became evident that executing this initiative would demand significant resources and coordination. The Philippine Pavilion in 2025 features a 2,000-square-meter pavilion, a strategically curated selection of books and authors, a dynamic cultural program, and a communications campaign designed to maximize global visibility.
In response, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, NBDB, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of Hon. Senator Loren Legarda came together to form the Philippines as Guest of Honour committees, leveraging each agency’s expertise and commitment. This collaboration ensures the Philippines’ publishing industry, and its key players will be highlighted and given the international focus it has worked hard to attain.