Rappler columnist receives NBDB grant for book on womanhood, faith, sexuality

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) awarded Rappler columnist and investigative journalist Ana P. Santos a grant for her forthcoming book, The Other Mary: Womanhood, Faith, Sexuality. Survival.

The book’s title comes from a study Santos read while she was a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she studied Gender (Sexuality) as a Chevening Scholar. “The research was about how in the Philippines, women are classified as either being like the Virgin Mary or the other Mary.”

The phrase captured a familiar but until recently, rarely questioned expectations imposed on Filipino women to be pure, maternal, and self-sacrificing like the Virgin Mary. Women who are perceived to defy these expectations, especially when it comes to their romantic and sexual lives, are cast as “the other Mary,” a label steeped in moral judgment.

“In the Philippines, the image of Mother Mary is everywhere, shaping expectations of what a ‘good woman’ should be. But real life is rarely that divine or that simple,” said Santos.

This tension sits at the heart of Santos’ book, which brings together years of her immersive reporting on women navigating faith, sexuality, migration, and survival in deeply unequal systems.

The Other Mary

The Other Mary is a collection of narrative nonfiction portraits drawn from Santos’ body of investigative work. The narratives challenge narrow portrayals of Filipino women shaped by the lingering legacies of colonial rule and the capitalist demands of the global care economy, where Filipino women are overrepresented as nannies, caregivers, and nurses. At the surface level, these forces flatten the lives of Filipino women into stereotypes as maids, martyrs, or moral warnings.

Instead, Santos centers women as agents of their own lives.

The book is divided into three parts, mirroring the structure of the Holy Trinity. The Migrant Mothers focuses on women forced to leave their families to work abroad and reveals how migration, love, and motherhood intersect in morally complex ways. The Rebels is about women who were subjected to vicious public shaming because of who and how they chose to love. The final section, Women of Negotiable Affection, looks at women whose labor involves selling and performing intimacy.  

Across all three sections, Santos blends reportage with reflection, revisiting past interviews with deeper attention to the emotional and moral terrain her subjects inhabit. A number of the stories are based on the various cross-border investigations Santos wrote about female migrant labor in Europe and the Middle East, which were supported by the Pulitzer Center.  

Additionally, Santos writes “Dash of SAS (Sex and Sensibilities),” Rappler’s long-running gender and sexuality column, which has expanded into a video series about positive sexuality as explored through the Filipino lens of culture and spirituality.

Supporting Filipino literary voices

Santos’ book is one of 20 titles selected for the NBDB Publication Grant Program, which received 238 applications nationwide. According to the NBDB, the selection process involved eligibility screening, genre-based evaluation by literature and publishing experts, and final deliberations to identify publish-worthy fiction and nonfiction works.

Established under Republic Act 8047, the NBDB is mandated to develop and promote the Philippine book publishing industry. The Publication Grant provides financial assistance for key production costs such as editing, design, layout, and printing, helping bring completed Filipino manuscripts to readers.

This year’s grantees represent a wide range of genres and voices from across the country, reflecting the NBDB’s commitment to supporting diverse and regionally grounded stories. – Rappler.com