Editor’s note: This press release is sponsored by Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards and was handled by BrandRap, the sales and marketing arm of Rappler. No member of the news and editorial team participated in the publishing of this piece.

The Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards (FRCA), an online popular choice awards revived this year by the Book Development Association of the Philippines (BDAP), finally opened its voting form last September 2! Filipino readers can now vote for their favorite books across 15 categories, namely Fiction (in English and Filipino), Romance (in English and Filipino), Fiction Anthology, YA Fiction, Children’s Picture Book, Comics & Graphic Novels, Poetry, Inspirational/Religious, Humor, Food & Cookbook, Nonfiction, History, and Translated Work. 

Books included in the voting form were published from 2015 to 2021, and categories are divided into two batches: one for titles published in 2015 to 2018, and another for titles published in 2019 to 2021. A total of over 1,500 books were nominated for this year’s FRCA. 

Voting will run from September 2 to 23, 2022. At the end of the voting period, the top three books from each category and batch will be named finalists and will enter into the judging period. A judging panel composed of avid readers will determine the winner among the finalists. 

Voting began at 7 pm on a Friday, and within the first twenty-four hour period, 11,000 unique votes were received. In order to vote, one must have a valid email, and each email only gets one vote. The last time the FRCA was held, in 2015, a total of 100,000+ unique votes were tallied. 

The FRCA committee will also be releasing partial results of the FRCA 2022 leading titles twice a week until the end of the voting period. 

Since the news of the FRCA’s return, readers, publishers, and authors have been expressing their support. Bebang Siy, a winner in the first FRCA, Essay Anthology category for It’s a Mens World, calls the number of nominations “piyesta level” (fiesta level) in a public Facebook post, and exhorts, “Kaya sa mga kaibigang mambabasa, iboto ang paborito ninyong libro. Ipakita natin ang suporta at pagmamahal sa librong gawa ng ating kapwa.”

(So to my reader friends, vote for your favorite book. Let us show our support and love for the books made by our fellow people.)

Director of four-time National Book Award (NBA) Publisher of the Year winner, Ateneo University Press, and BDAP Trustee, Karina Bolasco, says of the FRCA’s voting process, “For us to be a community of readers, we must read and talk about books, and say, share, speak to others of good things, great ideas we have heard from authors. A reader’s choice, a reader’s vote for a book will show us publishers what we are doing right.” 

To encourage readers to discover more books from the list, the FRCA and BDAP will also be holding an online book fair with Shopee within the month, highlighting FRCA-nominated titles. More details on that to come soon! 

Winners of the 2022 FRCA will be announced in November during the Philippine Book Fair in Baguio, another project of the BDAP. 

The voting form can be found at bit.ly/frca2022voting. 

For any questions or concerns about any aspect of FRCA 2022, interested parties may get in touch at filipinoreaderschoice@gmail.com. Publishers, authors, readers, and other interested parties may also follow the FRCA at the following sites: 

FB Page: Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards 

IG: @filipinoreaderschoice 

Twitter: @PhReadersChoice 

Hashtag: #FRCA2022 #filipinoreaderschoiceawards 

Mabuhay ang mambabasang Pinoy at akdang Pinoy!  – Rappler.com