By Wilson Lee Flores
BULL MARKET, BULL SHEET
The Philippine STAR 04/18/2005

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
– Dutch humanist and writer Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

Is the pen really mightier than the sword… what about against shotguns? Can promoting book reading and untrammeled press freedom help in the quest to liberate the Philippines from the age-old semi-feudal warlord politics dominating many rural provinces and which has caused so many unsolved murders of journalists in recent years?

A group of five journalists crusading to defend beleaguered or slain rural journalists and who love books recently banded together to open a nice little bookshop called Bound at 105 Scout Castor Street (just a few blocks off Tomas Morato Avenue behind Grappa’s Restaurant), Quezon City.

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ON A WING and a prayer. That was the spirit that bound five journalists when they plunged into the business of selling new and read books, says Inday Espina Varona, editor of the Philippine Graphic.

“We’ve been talking about it. Usapang panaginip lang (dream talk),” she says of the bookshop they call “Bound” that opened March 8 at 105-A Scout Castor St., in Quezon City.
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