Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon's book, SERVE, is a finalist for "Best Book in Journalism" in 2024's 42nd National Book Awards.
SERVE is an anthology of stories written by martial-law survivors that was conceived and edited by Jo-Ann for the Ateneo University Press.
The National Book Awards is an annual event that honors outstanding books written, designed, and published in the Philippines.
The award-giving body was established by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle.
Jo-Ann Maglipon is also the founding editor of the 18-year-old Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP.ph) and remains its editor-in-chief.
Read: Celebrating SERVE: Lessons from the past, hope for the future
A BOOK ABOUT CAMPUS JOURNALISTS in the dark Marcos Sr. years
SERVE is a collection of stories of 19 men and women who were college and university editors in the turbulent years of 1969 to 1972.
The book chronicles fragments of the lives of these campus editors who began chafing against Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s government in the late '60s, felt compelled to protest censorship, and ended up championing not just students' rights but the rights of society as a whole.
These campus editors came under siege.
SERVE brings light to Marcos Sr.'s declaration of martial law all over the country in September 1972, setting up a one-man rule that lasted nearly 14 years, and triggering a period when all media, including the campus press, were shut down.
When finally allowed to operate again, the media were effectively controlled through Marcos's Presidential Decrees and crony ownership.
But the book dives into the world of these 19 individuals far beyond martial rule—and into the journey that led to shifts in academic pursuits for some, the decision to join the Underground anti-dictatorship movement for a number, the exile of a few to foreign lands, the incarceration and torture of still others, and the losses, lessons, and triumphs in their personal lives and careers, then and now.
Ateneo de Manila University Press first published SERVE in late 2023, with a second printing in 2024, with the addition of a Preface by Jo-Ann.
Included as authors in SERVE are: Alexander Aquino, Elso Cabangon, Jones Campos, Sonny Coloma and Bob Corrales; Mercy Corrales, Butch Dalisay, Manuel Dayrit, and Jaime FlorCruz; Senen Glorioso, Eduardo Gonzalez, Diwa Guinigundo, Sol Juvida, and Derly Magcalen; Thelma Sioson, Chito Sta. Romana, Judy Taguiwalo, Angie Tocong, and Rey Vea.
These writers came from the following campuses: UE, UST, PUP, St. Louis College-Baguio, Mapua, La Salle, St. Theresa's College, UP, and Ateneo.
Book editor Jo-Ann Maglipon came from Maryknoll College.
The Ateneo Press website says: “Serve is an anthology of essays, personal and political, photographs, and paintings by college editors from 1969 to 1972.
“They look back on the martial-law years and how the dictatorship and their resistance to it have changed the course of their lives.
"Authors include Judy M. Taguiwalo, Manuel M. Dayrit, and Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., among others, today’s thought leaders who, having lived through the presidency of Marcos Sr., remind us to never forget.”
When SERVE was launched in September 2023 at Fully Booked in BGC, Jo-Ann spoke for the group. After saying this was neither a "vanity publication" nor a "revenge book," she confronted the question:
"So, why this book?
"To fight fantasy, forgetting, flagellation.
“To stop the gaslighting of activists of yesteryears for the resurrection of a dictator’s family.
“To rebuke exhortations of harmony and unity, false and deceitful.
"To demand apology, atonement, redress.
"And, yes, to remind the powers—we are here, we remember everything, and we write.”
42ND NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
For its 42nd year, the National Book Awards held the event at the historic Centro de Turismo in Intramuros, Manila, on November 23, 2024.
In all, there were 31 categories, with a total of 326 book titles cited as nominees for 2024.
SERVE was a nominee in the Best Book in Journalism category which carried the Hilarion and Esther Vibal Prize.
The other two nominees in the Best Book in Journalism category were COVID-19 in the News of Seekers, Scoundrels, and Saints by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, published by the Ateneo Press; and View from the Foxhole: Shaping the Political into the Personal by Joel Pablo Salud, published by the UP Press.
View from the Foxhole was declared the winner for 2024.
SERVE is available through the following channels: the Ateneo University Press website, Ateneo Press's Lazada and Shopee stores, and the Ateneo Press bookshop at Bellarmine Hall in the Ateneo de Manila campus on Katipunan.
Orders may also be placed thru all Fully Booked stores in the National Capital Region, Solidaridad, and Baybayin book shops, among others.
Read: Conrado de Quiros is gone, and there's the rub
BOOK AUTHOR AND EDITOR
SERVE is one of several books that Jo-Ann Maglipon has published.
In 1993, her book PRIMED was released by Anvil, the publishing arm of National Bookstore.
A 250-page book, PRIMED is a collection of Maglipon's reportage from 1972 - 1992, covering socio-cultural and political stories. These stories were first published in various media publications, including the Sunday Inquirer Magazine of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
This is an excerpt from the back-cover blurb written by premier journalist and poet Jose F. Lacaba: "Jo-Ann Maglipon belongs to a generation of committed journalists who came of age in a time of martial law... In these investigative and interpretative reports and features, she proves that committed journalism need not be 'grim and determined,' need not be dull, pedantic, pompous, ponderous."
Lacaba added: "Maglipon the person is known for her loud, raucous, distinctive laugh, and something akin to Rabelaisian laughter echoes in her stories, even those that seethe with disquiet and rage."
1998, PRIMED received the Gintong Aklat Award from the Book Development Association of the Philippines, the largest publishers' group in the country.
The Gintong Aklat Award meant that, for the period of 1988-1998, PRIMED was considered one of the "Ten Best Books of the Decade."
Jo-Ann is also the editor of the book Not On Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened. We Were There, self-published by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines-League of Editors for a Democratic Society (CEGP-LEADS).
Launched at the Central Bank museum in 2011, it might be said that Not On Our Watch was a prequel to SERVE.
Conrado de Quiros, the now-deceased star columnist of Inquirer, wrote in his introduction to Not On Our Watch: "Martial law was a time when so many of the country's best and brightest fell into the dark pit of state terrorism. But this was also a time when so many of the country's best and brightest rose to remind the world of what it means to be the best and brightest. It is not just to be bright enough to become CEO of a big company or succeed abroad, it is to be bright enough to know that you become your best when you serve the people."
Apart from being a book author, Jo-Ann is a print and digital editor.
She was founding editor and editor-in-chief of YES! magazine—published by Summit Media from April 2000 to May 2018—which rose to become the No. 1 entertainment magazine in the country and is on record as having the largest monthly print run in the country in modern times.
Before this, she was editor-in-chief of the then Gokongwei-owned Sunday Times Magazine that came with the Manila Times; and founding editor of Parents magazine.
She had been a columnist for the Manila Times, Manila Chronicle, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Newsbreak, and We Forum.
She was also at one time a contributing writer/producer for The Inside Story and Probe of ABS-CBN, and for the Philippine Center for Journalism (PCIJ).
For 2025, Jo-Ann is publishing a cinema book under Summit Books.
A collaboration with the widely respected critic Joel David, the yet untitled book is a canon—with synopses, reviews, and visuals—of 100-plus films that celebrate the best in Philippine cinema.
The cinema book will be carried by the Philippine booth at the Frankfurt International Book Fair this October 2025, along with SERVE.
With reports from Mark Angelo Ching