The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), through its National Committee on Historical Research (NCHR), is pleased to announce the winner for the 2021 Young Historian’s Prize (YHP).

The 2021 YHP is awarded to Ms. Ros A. Costelo with the manuscript titled, “Public Works and the Spanish Colonial Agenda of Sanitation, Order, and Social Control in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Manila.”

Costelo is an Assistant Professor at the Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman who received her Ph.D. in Contemporary History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

The YHP secretariat started accepting submissions from June 17, 2021 until August 31, 2021 with a total of nine nominations received. The Panel of Jurors convened on December 29, 2021 and the result of their deliberation was confirmed by the NCHR Executive Council (ExeCon) on January 5, 2022.

In accordance with Section 12.B.7 of Republic Act 7356 or the Law Creating the NCCA, the NCHR ExeCon conceptualized YHP to encourage and support the writing of Philippine history from the Filipino perspective and to recognize the potential of young Filipino scholars on the basis of their single original work in the field of Philippine history and historiography.