DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 October) – “Bakwit: The Power of the Displaced,” written by MindaNews’ Jose Jowel Canuday is a finalist in the Social Science category of the 29th National Book Awards.
The annual National Book Awards is a project of the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle.
According to the NBDB website, winners will be announced on November 13 at The Metropolitan Museum of Manila.
The other finalist in the Social Science category is “Kalusugang Pampubliko sa Kolonyal na Maynila, 1898-1918: Heographiya, Medisina, Kasaysayan, Ronaldo B. Mactal (University of the Philippines Press).
Canuday, a member of the Board of Directors of the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center (MNICC) which runs the daily news service, MindaNews and mindanews.com, where Canuday was a reporter, is completing his fieldwork for his doctoral degree on social anthropology at Oxford University.
“Bakwit,” referring to internally displaced persons (IDPs), is a seminal scholarly analysis on the conditions of people repeatedly displaced by armed conflict in Mindanao and was based on Canuday’s thesis for his MA Anthropology at Xavier University.
Canuday tracked four decades of recurring experience of displaced people in his field sites in the Maguindanao-North Cotabato area and concluded that it was not poverty that drove these areas into conflict but the policy of continuing armed campaigns drove these areas into impoverishment.
He noted the case of Barangay Buliok in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao, a former base of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the center of the massive military offensives in February 2003, as a prime example of how recurring armed conflicts rendered the area impoverished through the decades. He noted that before the war in the 1970s, Pagalungan was a flourishing and an important trading center for the people in the Ligawasan Marsh.
“Had it not been for the recurring armed conflicts, Buliok, Pagalungan would not have been as impoverished and ravaged as it is today,” Canuday said as he called for a serious review of government’s assumption of the conflict as solely rooted on poverty.
“Bakwit” is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press.
The finalists in the Literary Division for fiction and who will receive the Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Philippine Language & Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language are:
1. Flames and Other Stories by Angelo R. Lacuesta (Anvil Publishing)
2. The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata by Gina Apostol (Anvil Publishing)
3. Sibago by Abdon M. Balde Jr. (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House)
4. Unang Ulan ng Mayo by Ellen Sicat (Anvil Publishing)
For LiteraryCriticism/Literary History:
1. Pungsod Damming the Nation: Region/Nation and the Global Order in Contemporary West Visayan Literature, Isidoro M. Cruz (University of San Agustin Publishing House)
For Nonfiction Prose:
1. Bilanggo: Life as a Political Prisoner in the Philippines, 1952-1962 by William J. Pomeroy (University of the Philippines Press)
2. The Drama of It: A Life on Film and Theater by Daisy Hontiveros Avellana (Anvil Publishing)
3. Wash: Only a Bookkeeper, A Biography of Washington Z. Sycip by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. (SGV Foundation)
For Graphic Literature:
1. Trese: Mass Murders by Ferdinand-Benedict G. Tan and Jonathan A. Baldisimo (Visprint)
2. El Indio A Graphic Novel by Francisco V. Coching (Vibal Foundation)
For Poetry:
1. Aves by Jerry B. Gracio (University of the Philippines Press)
2. Bird Lands, River Nights and Other Melancholies by Jose Marte A. Abueg (University of the Philippines Press)
3. The Fashionista’s Book of Enlightenment by Carlomar Archangel Daoana (DBW)
4. The Highest Hiding Place: Poems by Lawrence Lacambra Ypil (Ateneo de Manila University Press)
The finalists for non-literary division:
For Professions:
1. The Law and Practice on Philippine Corporate Governance by Cesar L. Villanueva (Holy Angel University)
For Social Sciences
1. Bakwit: The Power of the Displaced by Jose Jowel Canuday (Ateneo De Manila University Press)
2. Kalusugang Pampubliko sa Kolonyal na Maynila, 1898-1918: Heographiya, Medisina, Kasaysayan by Ronaldo B. Mactal (University of the Philippines Press)
For Art [Alfonso T. Ongpin Prize for Best Book on Art]:
1. The Life and Works of Marcelo Adonay, Volume 1, By Elena Rivera Mirano, Corazon Canave Dioquino, Melissa Corazon Velez Mantaring, Edna Marcil Martinez, Ma. Patricia Brillantes-Silvestre, Iñigo Galing Vito, and Patricia Marion Lopez (University of thePhilippines Press)
2. A Satire of Two Nations: Exploring Images of the Japanese in Philippine Political Cartoons, By Helen Yu-Rivera (University of thePhilippines Press)
For Design:
1. Mapping the Philippines: The Spanish Period by Felix Mago Miguel, designer (Rural Empowerment Assistance and Development Foundation)
2. Palaspas: An Appreciation of Palm Leaf Art in the Philippines, by Karl Fredrick M. Castro, designer (Ateneo de Manila University Press)
3. Palawan: Land of Blessing, by Felix Mago Miguel, designer (Provincial Government of Palawan)
4. A Sudden Rush of Genius, by Mandy Cabral, designer (Art Quest World Wide)
5. Mga Tambay sa Tabi-Tabi: Creatures of Philippine Folklore, Mela Advincula, Robbie Bautista, Liza Flores, and Leo Alvarado, designers, Anvil Publishing. (MindaNews)
