Gaspar A. Vibal is the executive director of Vibal Foundation. As book collector, he pioneered the creation of
Filipiniana.net
Filipiniana, or originally Filipiñana, based on the definition by Isagani Medina from "Collection Building: Filipiniana", in his ''In Developing Special Library Collections, Filipiniana: Proceedings'' (November 1992), are Philippine-related bo ...
(a "fully featured digital library and research portal") and
WikiPilipinas.org, two of the foundation's flagship projects. As a
balikbayan from
New York City, Gaspar is a
scion of a family long-established in the Philippine book publishing and commercial printing industry. His parents are Hilarion Palomer Vibal (1908–1988) and Esther Asuncion (1923-2020). Hilarion was a writer, editor, and publisher. He is known as the co-founder of
Vibal Publishing House, Inc.
Vibal Publishing House, Inc. (also known as Vibal Group, Inc., Vibal, or VPHI) is a major publishing house in the Philippines based in Quezon City. Vibal was founded in 1953 by Hilarion P. Vibal and by his wife, Esther Asuncion-Vibal. Vibal is a ...
, the Philippines' biggest publishing house. He was among the first generations of Filipino writers in English. On April 30, 1950, Hilarion met and married Esther at the time he was recruited by Ramon Roces's associate D.H. Soriano to become the business editor of Evening News. Gaspar's mother Esther, on the other hand, is a writer, publisher, businesswoman, socio-civic worker, lifetime member of the prestigious
Girl Scouts of the Philippines and
philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
. As incumbent president of Vibal Publishing House Inc. (VPHI), she is known internationally as the first Asian and Filipino world president (1983) of
Inner Wheel Club file:Sue Morris of Inner Wheel for Rotary International.jpg, Sue Morris of the Inner Wheel presenting in 2021 in Scotland
Inner Wheel is an international women's organisation to create friendship, service and understanding. It has clubs in over 100 ...
, a socio-civic organization formed by wives of
Rotary International
Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, prof ...
. She was the founder of Philippine Women's Studies project and member of the board of trustees of UP Center for Women's Studies Foundation, Inc. (UP CWSFI), a commissioner of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, and was the president of the National Council of Women of the Philippines (1990).
Vibal earned a
Bachelor of Science degree in
business economics from the
University of the Philippines. He worked for 2 decades in the Philippine and American
publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
industries. In 1983 Vibal migrated to New York to study at the
New York University Book and Magazine Publishing Institute.
Online Ventures
WikiPilipinas
Gaspar brought Wiki to the Philippines by the creation of his
WikiPilipinas
WikiPilipinas (formerly known as Wikipiniana) is an online, free content website which bills itself as a combination "non-academic encyclopedia", web portal, directory and almanac for Philippine-based knowledge. Like Wikipedia, it contain ...
which introduced the '
copyleft'
IPR model of Wikipedia. The WikiPilipinas team, headed by webmaster Richard Grimaldo (internet and telecommunications administrator of the Vibal Group of Companies) and Alfred Ursua as its managing edito
were responsible for Gaspar's initial Project Wikipiniana. Gaspar projected for the
long tail
In statistics and business, a long tail of some probability distribution, distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involv ...
phenomenon or effect (Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson) of this Philippine Wiki
encyclopedia
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
to give more prominence to Filipino culture on the Internet. Vibal complained that "almost all the articles in Wikipedia are written from a Western point of view". But aiming not just for balance, Vibal opted more for "a national campaign to foster
nationalism". And like many local editions of Wikipedia, Wikipilipinas already suffers from the "frog in the well"
syndrome: a regional
ghetto of interest only to angry nationalists protesting that the Philippines is doomed and that it's all someone else's fault. On March 15, 2008, Vibal's WikiPilipinas created WikiFilipino, for Filipino culture and information. It is managed by Alfred Ursua, with web support by Richard Grimaldo, and guidance by Roberto T. Añonuevo.
Filnet and ESP
Gaspar's Filipiniana.net is a digital library and online research portal "that houses the most comprehensive collection of Filipino- related documents that are in the public domain, from letters from Spanish Governor-General Pedro de Acuña to King Philip III to an obscure 1933 Philippine romance novel entitled "Ang Magmamani", and makes it all available to the public at no cost at all". Launched on November 23, 2006, it was Richard Grimaldo's web development and applications expertise that was crucial in the development of Filipiniana.net to spearhead Vibal's vision "of democratizing Filipino access to information about the Philippines through the internet." It digitized rare and out of print books, documents, and images and publishing them online without any cost to the readers.
VIBAL Publishing's 1980 Educational Service Program (ESP) was a brainchild of Gaspar Vibal, and has "evolved to become a full-scale teacher-training program with year-round seminars and workshops to help teachers and school administrators nationwide meet the increasing demands and challenges posed by their profession".
Vibal stated that: "Today, it (Filipiniana.net) has one of the widest and most comprehensive collection of hard-to-find Filipiniana books and documents categorized under history, geography, culture, government, and society. It also features photographs, maps, paintings and illustrations, the Virtual Philippine Revolutionary Records, 100 Nobelang Tagalog, Virtual Blair and Robertson, and the Master Union Bibliography of the Philippines, 100 Pinoy Komik Serials, Premio Zobel.org, and Archivo General de Filipinas." Vibal also announced the forthcoming birth of his
brainchild
Brainchild may refer to:
* Brainchild (band), a local supergroup from Youngstown, Ohio, 1969–1972
* ''Brainchild'' (Society of Soul album), 1996
* ''Brainchild'' (Circle of Dust album), 1994
* Fictional comic characters in the Marvel Universe: ...
e-turo.org.
e-turo.org
On June 12, 2008, the 110th
Philippine Declaration of Independence day, e.turo.org was created by the Vibal Foundation, (owned by Gaspar Vibal and his family) a nonprofit organization which previously launched Filipiniana.net, and WikiPilipinas.org (a reference guide on the Philippines). Tin Mandigma, editor-in-chief of E-turo.org explained that it is an e-learning portal which "seeks to provide free and quality learning materials online to teachers and students; it gives teachers access to lesson plans and modules based on textbook materials published by Vibal Publishing House, Inc. amid plans to offer Department of Education-approved content from various learning institutions as supplementary teaching materials. One of the most common complaints of teachers is that while the Internet has so much information, most of it cannot be adapted to the local classroom. With this project, we hope to help teachers sort through the clutter and give them quality information that would be useful for their students."
Controversy
Amid the Department of Education's controversy on recent textbook project, Vibal Publishing House Inc. admitted that it had interlocking ownership with an affiliate, the LG and M Corp, but denied accusations of being the leader of a
cartel. Vibal and LG and M formed a
consortium
A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...
regarding the publication and delivery of 17.5 million elementary textbooks and teaching manuals for public elementary and high schools funded by P 800-million loan ($40 million)
World Bank loan. Contracts were awarded in September, 2006 to Vibal and Watana Phanit, inter alia, despite a pending Supreme Court petition filed by losing bidders. Further, Gaspar clarified that
Wikipilipinas
WikiPilipinas (formerly known as Wikipiniana) is an online, free content website which bills itself as a combination "non-academic encyclopedia", web portal, directory and almanac for Philippine-based knowledge. Like Wikipedia, it contain ...
"should be treated as a separate entity from his family's publishing business, Vibal Publishing".
Rizaliana collection
Vibal acquired the rare first edition copies of Dr.
Jose Rizal's novels, ''
Noli Me Tangere'' and ''
El Filibusterismo'', for his Filipiniana.net. Vibal discovered these at the Old Book Fair in
Madrid, Spain on October, 2006. These were part of the late
Adelina Gurrea Monasterio collection. Vibal stated that: "They are very expensive" – opting to be careful not to reveal the price, for it might put the prized items in danger. Vibal spent 25 years of his life to bring back the original "Noli" and "Fili" to Philippine shores.
services.inquirer.net, There's The Rub : Flesh and spirit
/ref>
Vibal has a treasure collection of articles either written by, for, or about Dr. Jose Rizal, antiquated by dust and partly destroyed by termites. His wide collection of Filipiniana (printed works on Philippine history and culture) include:
*One volume of Ricardo Galang's first Philippine Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
, published in 1939 (there were only 1,000 copies of the 20 volumes).
*One of the early copies of the 1935 Commonwealth of the Philippines
The Commonwealth of the Philippines ( es, Commonwealth de Filipinas or ; tl, Komonwelt ng Pilipinas) was the administrative body that governed the Philippines from 1935 to 1946, aside from a period of exile in the Second World War from 1942 ...
Constitution of the Philippines
The Constitution of the Philippines (Filipino: ''Saligang Batas ng Pilipinas'' or ''Konstitusyon ng Pilipinas'', Spanish: ''Constitución de la República de Filipinas'') is the constitution or the supreme law of the Republic of the Philippines ...
.
* Historian Esteban Ocampo's 40-year-old Rizaliana collection which he salvaged from the Heritage Art Center in Cubao, Quezon City.
*Copies of first editions of Rizal
Rizal, officially the Province of Rizal ( fil, Lalawigan ng Rizal), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Its capital is the city of Antipolo. It is about east of Manila. The p ...
's '' Noli Me Tangere'' and '' El Filibusterismo''.
He digitized such historical resources / articles and upload them for free on filipinana.net. and wikipilipinas.org. Vibal and associate, Jaime Marco, initiated the portal with the help of Spanish historian Carlos Madrid.
Partners
Vibal's partners in the industry were Jeroen Hellingman (Dutch director of Project Gutenberg Philippines, the world's first and biggest provider of free Philippine electronic books); Isaac Donoso, Spanish historian in Manila; Dr. Lloyd Espiritu, former dean of the De La Salle College of Computer Studies; University of the Philippines-based historian Grace Mateo; and Georgina Padilla Zobel of Premio Zobel.
External links
Filipiniana.net
Vibal Publishing House, Inc.
WikiPilipinas.org
Flicker, WikiPilipinas, Vibal
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vibal, Gaspar
Living people
20th-century Filipino businesspeople
Year of birth missing (living people)
New York University alumni
Filipino emigrants to the United States
University of the Philippines alumni
21st-century Filipino businesspeople
Filipino publishers (people)