Taboan Writers Festival, the annual festival for literature by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the the flagship project of NCCA’s National Commission for Literary Arts, will be held at Dumaguete City from February 8 to 11.

About 100 seasoned and 50 emerging writers will be gracing the festival to talk about the concerns and issues of literature in the Philippines. Besides the local artists, Taboan also invited some foreign literary writers to join the literary fest.

Filipino poets, fictionists, essayists, among others, will be expected to join the celebration. There will be lectures, discussions and presentation of literary works. This will also be a venue for writers to interact with each other and make connection to fellow writers, publishers and the academe.

Taboan 2013 will be a venue not only for writers but also for students, teachers and lovers of the literary to learn from the experts and be inspired to their stories and experiences.

Last year, the festival was held in Pampanga and was graced by different literary artists such as National Artists F. Sionil Jose, Virgilio Almario and Bienvenido Lumbera, poet Michael Coroza and fictionist Charlson Ong, among others.

This project is annually done in line with the celebration of the Philippine Arts Festival (PAF) as part of the National Arts Month (NAM). Taboan 2013 is spearheaded by Dr. Christine Godinez-Ortega and St. Paul University—Dumaguete will be one of the hosts of the festival.

NAM was initiated in 1991 when Presidential Proclamation 683 was signed declaring February as National Arts Month. The NCCA, the country’s prime agency for the arts and culture, has been spearheading the celebration, initially with activities centering on the National Capital Region until they spread out to the regions. Currently, activities of the NCCA during NAM are held in different parts of the Philippines.

The different NAM activities of the NCCA were consolidated and given a certain format in 2007, coming up with the PAF. Now, the PAF is mainly comprised of the flagship projects of the seven committees of the NCCA’s Subcommission on the Arts—architecture, cinema, dance, literature, music, theater and the visual arts.

For more details on the activities and schedules, contact PAF Media Director and NCCA-Public Affairs and Information Office (PAIO) head, Rene Sanchez Napeñas at (632) 527-2192 or at 0928.5081057. Log on to www.ncca.gov.ph or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .