Surviving the Manila International Book Fair (Part 1)

September 16, 2026

As the country’s biggest and longest-running book expo, MIBF is like a tsunami, or better yet, a kamikaze wave of people. You will not experience anything else like this. Inside SMX, the fair becomes its own living organism, a massive sea of human energy. The density and the sheer amount of people packed into those two giant floors is insane. You can’t move, really. You’re packed in like sardines, so moving through the crowds is basically like surfing. You can't fight it—you just have to catch the wave, tap into the movement, and go with the flow.

Wednesday: The Storm, The Panel, and The Mission

I was staying with Raygun at their Airbnb near MOA. It was raining bad in Manila, floods and storms were everywhere. I could've caught a Grab or an Uber out there, but that didn't seem as cool. It was hella funny pulling up to SMX in a trike in that weather. It's been a while!

I had to get there to catch Rexy Dorado’s panel. We kicked off MIBF with a character craft convo featuring some of my favorite storytellers in the world, with Nida Ramirez co-moderating alongside Rexy, who played "mister impostor syndrome" and was just excited to be geeking out with heroes in the scene like Yvette Tan, Ronaldo S. Vivo, Jr., Chuckberry Pascual, and Claire Betita De Guzman.

After the panel, I hit the show floor to do the rounds looking for new books. Wednesday was opening day, meaning it wasn't packed yet, a bit of foreshadowing to the absolute shit show it would become over the weekend. Hot Tropiks was on a clear mission: hit all the booths looking for sci-fi, fantasy, spec fiction, mythology, folklore, horror, and other cool titles for our upcoming release schedule.

There are actually two floors at MIBF. The main ground floor is where all the larger publishers and textbook giants set up, but upstairs is where you find the indie publishers and more of the local komiks scene.

Looking at books in person is just different. You actually get to pick them up, inspect them, and connect directly to get everyone's contacts. Sourcing new books can be hard when publishers don’t know you yet, but I was still able to pick up a few great standouts right away.

Thursday: Holy Grails, Reconnecting, and a Packed Afternoon

I came back on Thursday for a second round just to catch anything I might have missed. Good thing I did, because I discovered one of my absolute holy grails had just been reprinted: The Creatures of Lower Mythology by Maximo Ramos. I was so excited! It was out of print for a long time, and Budjette Tan actually told me it was one of the main source materials he used for Trese.

Thursday was not so much about new business, but more about reconnecting with publishers we already work with, showing face, and seeing what they have in the works. It was nice to reconnect with the Anvil and Galerie Petit teams, have a great chat with Paolo and the Komiket crew, and spend some quality time hanging out with everyone at the Raygun booth checking out their new catalogs and prepping our next wave of orders.

By the afternoon, I had to head back to Makati for a super packed schedule: meeting up with Karl De Mesa, attending my nephew's birthday dinner at the Raffles, and connecting with sci-fi and speculative fiction writer Gabriela Lee.