In support of making books accessible to those with a print disability, Regina Reyna “Reg” V. Pastor, membership officer of the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society, Inc. (FILCOLS), addressed participants at the Quezon City executive hall during the White Cane Month event on August 14.
“Copyright is very important for creators,” said Pastor before the group composed of the visually impaired and their guardians, authors, publishers, and QC government staff. “The authors must be properly recognized like giving proper attribution and just remuneration if their works are used on a large-scale like photocopying and digital copying inside institutions.”
“For FILCOLS we protect the reproduction rights of authors so if you have a book, you may join us. Membership is free,” she added.
Award-winning author Candy Gourlay supported Pastor’s invitation and said she is also a member of a similar copyright society in the United Kingdom. The London-based author talked about her writing life and gave away CDs of her work “Tall Story” for the Quezon City Public Library.
White Cane Month is a national celebration made possible by RA 6759, a law crafted during the presidency of Corazon Aquino.
The law aims to “promote and protect the physical, moral, and social well-being of all handicapped persons, such as the blind, and to undertake studies on specific causes of the high percentage of blind people in the Philippines.”
FILCOLS is one of the groups tapped by Wowie Catabijan, FILCOLS trustee and Kahel Press officer, to coordinate the event’s organization to celebrate White Cane Month. The other groups are Kahel Press, Bookshare Philippines, the Philippine Blind Union, and the Persons with Disability Affairs Office of the Quezon City Government.
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Text by Alvin J. Buenaventura. For more information, please visit http://filcols.blogspot.com