(A look back on the year that was in Mindanao, and Mindanawons in the national and international scene)
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 11 January) – The year 2025 yielded a harvest of at least 27 Mindanao books, 20 of them published in Mindanao, covering a wide range of topics, among them the Bangsamoro peace process, violent terrorism, Sama Banguigi culture, women in peace and security and women in agrifood system, literature, exorcism, integral ecology and Laudato Si, the making of a Mindanao rebel, the legacy of a Marine brigade, an activist priest’s journal.
Mindanao books refer to those written by Mindanawons on various topics and books on Mindanao written by Mindanawons and non-Mindanawons.
Out of the 20 published in Mindanao, eight were published by the Zamboanga City-based Maven Media Asia; three by universities in Mindanao; three by a Davao City-based independent publisher focusing on philosophy, spirituality, social sciences and literature; two by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism which runs MindaNews, one by a General Santos City-based publishing house, one by a Cotabato City-based publishing house, and another by a Cotabato City-based autonomy institute.
This list does not include zines published in Mindanao and written by Mindanawon authors, among them “Liham Mula sa Selda” (Letters from Prison) written by persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in Koronadal City, South Cotabato. “Liham” contains nine essays and four poems and was launched in late November during the SOX Zine Fest, a literary event showcasing self-published zines of local writers. (A separate listing of zines will be uploaded shortly).
Of the 20 Mindanao-published publications, Maven Media Asia’ s eight books are:
Advanced Field Instruction (Social Work Book I) by Jannet Francisco,
Agricultural Extension and Communication by Sittie Kauzar Ayub,
Aklat ng Exorcismo by Joel M. Paris,
Appraisal of the Preparedness of Selected Private Schools Inclusion Towards a Proposed Model by Benjamin Siy, Jr. PhD,
Forging Valor: The Legacy of the First Philippine Marine Corps Battalion by Lt. Armela Mae Ellar-Gil,
Roots and Waves: The Enduring Language Culture of the Sama Banguingi by Mara Frencie L. Carreon, James Francis Warren, Roger Davae Fr. Gramatica, and Dato Amman Abdurahman Bagis Nuno, Al Hadj,
Security Involvement in Mental Health: Concerns and Interventions by Christine V. Yambao, PLtCol. Ryan Mark N. Secuya, and Thea Eloise Flores, and Understanding Radicalization, Violent Extremism by Roque Santos Morales and Maria Frencie L. Carreon.
The Ateneo de Davao University Publication Office published Daylight Dreams of Water by Jennae Jereza, her debut poetry collection featuring works first published in The Brussels Review.
Jereza served as Assistant Director for Internationalization of the Ateneo Internationalization for Mindanao Office from 2019 to 2024.
According to the AdDU Publications Office, Daylight Dreams of Water gathers poems that flow through myth, memory, and ecological grief. “Drawing from Filipino folktales and ancestral rituals, Jereza transforms water into witness, archive, and dream. Her poetry moves between the intimate and the mythic; reflecting on loss, resilience, and remembrance in an age of environmental change.”
The book was launched on November 21, 2025 at the ADDU.
The Mindanao State University in Maguindanao published a learning book for the Diploma in Women, Peace and Security (DWPS) — Dialogue Beyond Borders: Reimagining WPS through the Yogyakarta–Bangsamoro Experience — written by 31 cohorts of the DWPS.
The book was launched at the Philippine International Conventional Center in Pasay City on October 29, 2025.
Xavier University Press of the Ateneo de Cagayan is the publisher of Imperfect Leadership: A Jesuit reflects on his journey, written by Fr. Antonio Moreno, SJ, who graduated from Xavier University in high school. Moreno served as XU’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2003 before he was named Vice President of Social Development in 2007.
The Davao City-based Aletheia Publishing released three books in 2025: Radical Sharing and Revolutionary Solidarity: Economic Ethics in the Gospel of Luke, by Elton L. Viagedor, OFM, M.A.,published in February; Explorations Into Filipino Contextual Theology: A Protestant Perspective, by Melanio LaGuardia Aoanan, published in March; and Canonical Matrimonial Law: Navigating Validity and Nullity in Canonical Marriage, by Jose Junar N. Dela Victoria, JCD, published in March.
The Mindanao Institute of Journalism, which runs MindaNews, is the publisher of The Start of the Newby Lorenzo Mendoza de Vera, and Integral Ecology Ministry: Doing Ecological Theology and Advocacy in Light of Laudato Si’ by Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto.
The Start of the New was launched on March 4, on what would have been the author’s 29th birthday. His classmates at the Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao campus (Batch 2013) gathered in Casa Munda, Davao City for the launch of the book that features the poems, short stories and essays of Enzo/Lorry/Lorrie, who passed on in February 2021.
De Vera finished college at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, with a BS Math degree.
Integral Ecology Ministry is written by Fr. Raluto, currently parish priest of Libona in Bukidnon, and contains a collection of his articles published in books and theological journals, and reflections in his “Integral Ecology” column in MindaNews.
Fr. Sean McDonagh, SSC, describes the book as “a very important publication, not just for Christians in the Philippines but for everyone who is concerned about the wellbeing of the global environment.” He said the book is also “about new ways in which people in dioceses and parishes can safeguard the environment in a host of different ways.”
The books on the Bangsamoro Peace Process published in 2025 are: Advancing Bangsamoro Aspirationby Abhoud Syed Lingga, published by the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies and Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Cambodia; Metamorphosis: A Decade’s Peace Journey, by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU).
The Council for Climate and Conflict Action Asia (CCCAA) published Stronghold Stranglehold Clans of the Bangsamoro, edited by Francisco J. Lara Jr.
According to the CCCAA in its invitation to the launching in August, “you can’t understand peace in the Bangsamoro without understanding clans. They are not stereotypes, they are the engines of politics, conflict, and governance. Our new book uncovers how.”
To determine what happened in the first six years – 2019 to 2025 – of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Cotabato City-based Institute for Autonomy and Governance published The Bangsamoro Transition Authority and the forging of an autonomous regional government in Muslim Mindanao: A report of the six-year BARMM transition, by David J. Timberman and Yasmina Moner.
Deeper Ground, Darker Shadows: The Making of a Mindanao Rebel, published by the Wisconsin University Press, is the memoir of Eddie L. Quitoriano, who grew up in a rural part of Mindanao and eventually became one of the top organizers of the Communist Party of the Philippines and commander of the New People’s Army.
An abridged version of the memoirs of Fr. Amado L. Picardal, CSsR, who succumbed to cardiac arrest on May 30, 2024, was published by the Institute of Spirituality for Asia and the Redemptorist Province in Cebu. The Beloved: Journals, Letters, and Diaries of a Priest, was launched in Cebu City on May 30, 2025, the first death anniversary of Picardal.
The priest is known for having actively pursued justice for victims of summary killings in Davao City while Rodrigo Duterte was mayor, and for victims during the bloody war on drugs of Duterte as President. He was also known for his long walks and his bikes for peace, justice, environment.
Published by ElziStyle Bookshop in Cotabato City, Labbayk: A Pilgrimage Memoir: Answering the Call, Returning to the Heart, written by Mansoor Limba, is described as “not just a travelogue of a sacred journey” but a “chronicle of yearning, delay, surrender, and eventual transformation.”
“Spanning decades of whispered vows, postponed plans, and quiet heartbreaks, this deeply personal narrative walks us through one family’s long-awaited Hajj: a father past his prime, a mother with quiet strength, and a daughter whose tears turned a two-person journey into a sacred trio.”
The book is not a guide to the rituals of Hajj but a guide to the heart’s readiness to respond, “a love letter to the delays that deepen our du‘ā, to the call that never stops echoing, and to the sacred courage it takes to finally say: ‘Here I am, O Lord. Here I am.’”
Empowerment Through Enterprise: The B’yaneng Journey, written by Alma Lim Uy and Dr. Maria Esther Paraba and published by Paraba, is a book highlighting the collective journey of empowered women entrepreneurs in Tagum City, Davao del Norte. It was launched during the TindaNow Mindanao Nano, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (NMSMEs) Summit at Ayala Hall on November 26.
The General Santos City-based Bidadali Press is publisher of Closing Party and Other Stories, written by filmmaker and writer Gutierrez Mangansakan II while The University of the Philippines Press is publisher of Hanaw, written by Ana Margarita R. Nuñez, who hails from Iligan City.
Closing Party is a collection of 13 short stories exploring Filipino Muslim life, culture, politics, and mysticism. The book has gained recognition from Rolling Stone Philippines as one of 12 notable books in 2025.
Rolling Stone Philippines noted that Mangansakan’s book “explores the entanglements of queerness, faith, and negotiation with the structures that preceded us, but remain malleable to our own will and agency.”
“Whether in Quezon City, Bangsamoro, Tokyo, or 17th-century Cádiz, Mangansakan imbues his characters and settings with heart and a poet’s eye for detail. He exhibits a commendable understanding of those caught between seemingly irreconcilable systems of belief, but resists the urge to flatten complexities and provide readers with easy answers,” it said.
In congratulating Nuñez for the book, the De La Salle University’s Department of Literature posted on its social media page that Hanaw “originated as her PhD dissertation and has been published by UP Press as part of the Philippine Writers Series 2025.”
Hanaw is a novel about a woman in Iligan, in her thirties, stuck in a dead-end teaching job. An opportunity to work abroad and see the world seems like the answer, but it also means leaving her hometown of Iligan and what it stands for.
According to the UP Press, “as Katrina decides between the familiar and the unfamiliar, she must deal with the resonance of the choices made by those who came before her, caught between the contingencies of love and war and mourning for what has disappeared—ang nahanaw—even as she becomes someone who has the awareness of what can be saved—naa’y hanaw.”
The UP Press celebrated its 60th year in 2025 with 61 books, including a reprint of Muslims in the Philippines by Cesar Adib Majul, launched as part of a new series called Paraluman. The series reprints seminal scholarly and critical works. Majul’s book was reprinted in 2024.
But the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies published in 2025, “Majul’s Essays about Muslim Mindanao,” a monograph co-published with the Journal of Contemporary Asia, under the UP CIDS Monograph Series. The monograph is co-published with the Journal of Contemporary Asia and has print and online formats.
The monograph includes a previously unpublished Majul piece titled “Notes on the Earliest Muslim Missionaries or Teachers in Sulu.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
If we missed out on a 2025 Mindanao book, please email editor@mindanews.com. We welcome additions to this list.
