The UST Publishing House (USTPH) launched 31 titles during its grand book launch, “SINAG 2025,” on Nov. 25 at the Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, O.P. Building.
Ned Parfan, USTPH director, said this year’s installment marked a milestone not only for the volume of works but also for the eclectic group of its contributors.
“It’s also our most diverse group of authors. We have an exorcist, a surgeon, a showbiz entertainment writer, and academics from UP Diliman, UP Los Baños, and Ateneo de Manila. We have a National Artist, and we have a record number of Dominican fathers who submitted their works with us,” Parfan told the Varsitarian.
Among the works launched was the book by journalism faculty member Jose Maria Carlos.
Carlos, a veteran broadcast journalist, authored “On-Air Na! Pinoy News Anchor Live!: A Guide on News Anchoring in Philippine Media.” It is a comprehensive guidebook on news anchoring that features interviews with 31 news anchors, offering an inside look at the practice of broadcast journalism.
“This is the first time that I am involved in publishing a book here in the Philippines,” Carlos said.
“They (USTPH) were very excited about the book because it’s a first in terms of what it covers—news anchoring in Philippine media,” he added.
Carlos said being a news anchor requires extensive preparation, and goes far beyond reading and practicing scripts because “you eat, you drink, you live news.”
Creative writing professor Chuckberry Pascual was also among the authors present at the grand book launch, where he marked the 10th anniversary of his book “Mga Bubuyog na Nagkumpulan.”
Pascual said “Mga Bubuyog na Nagkumpulan” is a revised edition of “Kumpisal,” which was first published in 2015.
“This time, naka-concentrate na lang siya sa isang story cycle. So, binubuo siya ng nine stories, six stories from the original book (Kumpisal) and then three stories from a different collection pero mas buo na ngayon ang cycle,” he said.
Pascual said the reprint of the book signalled USTPH’s support for Filipino writing and queer literature.
Also launched was “Complete Stories & Tales,” a compilation of short stories spanning 50 years, by Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, “ director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS).
“For me, it (grand book launch) is primarily an occasion to get together with writer friends… from other schools, and also friends who are not writers at all but who come for the launch. And of course, it’s a good opportunity to say thank you to my publishers,” Pantoja-Hidalgo said.
CCWLS Co-Director Augusto Antonio Aguila noted during his speech at the grand book launch that the scholarly anthology enriches the study of film, its cultural significance, and its national context.
With Varsitarian adviser Joselito Zulueta, Aguila edited “Vilma Santos, Icon: Essays on Cinema, Culture & Society,” a scholarly anthology featuring 19 articles written by scholars and academics from various universities.
“It’s important to talk about the artistry of film actors, and we hope that people will be more aware of actors’ bodies of work and how they’ve influenced the nation and our culture,” Aguila said.
Aguila also said they hope to publish a coffee table book featuring Vilma Santos in 2026 as part of a three-book project.
SINAG 2025 highlighted books published between 2024 and 2025, which includes “Ethics, Justice, and Recognition: Essays on Critical Theory” by Paolo A. Bolaños, “Interdisciplinary Legal Studies: Philippine Constitutional Law, International Law, and the Humanities” by Jose Duke Bagulaya and “Regarding the Face of Others: Social Difference and Inhuman Sympathy” by Charlie Samuya Veric.
The USTPH also featured religious works by Dominican priests, such as “Catholic Handbook of Prayers For Spiritual Liberation” and “Exorcisms with Redactor’s Notes” by Fr. Winston F. Cabading, O.P., “The Dominican Right of Solemn Profession” by Fr. Roberto L. Luanzon, Jr., O.P., Fr. Fausto B. Gomez, O.P.’s “Vitamins of Another Kind: Notes of Christian Spirituality,” and “Whose Joy? Whose Happiness?: Debating Divorce in the Philippines” by Fr. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. With reports from Kirsten Therese C. Barrameda.
