And the 2017 National Children's Book Day (NCBD) came to pass. It commenced with the awarding of the Salanga Prize and Alcala Prize at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) to Mr. Genaro Gojo Cruz and Ms. Sophia Demanawa respectively. Three things made this year's NCBD Awards Ceremony truly touching, at least for me. These are the presence of Elyrah Salanga Torralba and Boyet Alcala, children of Alfredo Salanga and Larry Alcala, who granted the awards to the winners this year; the honest and spontaneous acceptance speeches of Mr. 
Pepper Roxas was the guest speaker during the NCBD celebration in CCP. She flew in from New York to deliver a stirring keynote on the power of stories and why, in this dark and dangerous times, artists, especially the ones in the Philippine Children's Literature industry must continue telling and creating stories.
Ms. Roxas was also the plenary speaker in the 2nd Philippine Children's Book Summit.
On July 22, 2017, the 2nd Philippine Children's Book Summit, Illustrators Fair and Storytelling Festival were held at the GT Toyota Asian Center in UP Diliman. The National Library of the Philippines conducted its annual international conference on Children's and Young Adult Library and Museo Pambata had a storytelling workshop facilitated by Kuya Bodjie Pascua.
The CCP, being an institutional member of PBBY, organized a mini-book fair, conducted workshops in the afternoon on writing, film animation and gave tours to young visitors. The tour is a regular program of the CCP to strengthen art education and art studies in the basic education level. Visit the CCP website for more information about the My CCP tour for young people.
In the days that followed, PBBY got wind of more NCBD Celebrations. SM malls had a two-day run of storytelling and reading aloud sessions featuring illustrated story books, Two Friends One Word by Ramon Sunico (Anvil, 1990) and Bumabara-bara -bara by Fernando Gonzales (Chikiting Books, 2015). PBBY President, Tarie Sabido, gave a workshop on books and reading to teachers of Malabanan Elementary School in Biñan, Laguna. Kuya Rey Bufi conducted a workshop on storytelling in the same school.
On July 22, 2017, the 2nd Philippine Children's Book Summit, Illustrators Fair and Storytelling Festival were held at the GT Toyota Asian Center in UP Diliman. The National Library of the Philippines conducted its annual international conference on Children's and Young Adult Library and Museo Pambata had a storytelling workshop facilitated by Kuya Bodjie Pascua.
It was on the third Tuesday of July when Jose Rizal's The Monkey and the Tortoise was published in Trubner's Oriental Record in London. History accords it as the first Filipino folk tale to be published in an international periodical. It would be important to note that, The Monkey and the Tortoise was dedicated by Rizal to his nieces and nephews. Translating and adapting two stories by Hans Christian Andersen (I can only remember The Ugly Duckling), Rizal seemed bent on leaving a legacy to his nieces and nephews, as well as to young Filipino people.
