Introduction:
Fearless Filipinas and Fearless Filipinas II both sought out to showcase a diverse range of stories of the Filipina, by the Filipina, and for the Filipina. As we start preparing for Fearless Filipinas III, we, as a team, yearn to paint a wider, more diverse picture of all the different strong and fearless Filipinas there are in the world. With this, we’ve analyzed all 39 women in the past two books to see what gaps there are to fill so that we can have a more targeted approach in looking for the women to feature in FF III.
Generational Background
For convenience and uniformity, we decided to reference the categorized generational groups provided by Active Age, which provided seven different generations spanning from 1901 to 2025. The categories are as follows:
- The Greatest Generation (born 1901–1927)
- The Silent Generation (born 1928–1945)
- Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964)
- Generation X (born 1965–1980)
- Millennials (born 1981–1995)
- Generation Z (born 1996–2010)
- Generation Alpha (born 2011–2025)
In the 39 people listed within the gathered data, there are 4 people whose ages could not be estimated, as there was insufficient information about them that could be found online. These include Josie Trinidad, Rowena Romulo, Sharon G. Dayoan, and Yasmin Busran-Lao. We chose not to allocate them into any of the categories for this reason. Additionally, none of the women fall under Generation Alpha.
After processing the data, we found that Millennials form the largest sample size, with 21 people born within 1981-1995. The next largest group is Generation X, with 8 people born between 1965-1980. Generation Z comprises 4 people born within 1996-2010. While there was no one listed as being part of the Silent Generation, there is 1 person listed as a Baby Boomer and 1 person who came from The Greatest Generation.
The data showed a significant overrepresentation for the Millennial group. Since Generation Z are starting to emerge as the next generation of leaders and workers, they can be considered as a focus group in future coverage and features. However, posthumous recognition can also be included in order to have more variety within the group of women who are highlighted for their achievements and significant contributions.
Geographic Background
Metro Manila dominates the locations of birthplaces and current residences of the featured Filipinas. There are only ten featured Filipinas whose birthplaces are from provinces across the country. Four of them are from provinces in Luzon regions namely, Central Luzon, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Region V (Bicol Region), and Region IV-A (CALABARZON). There are three Filipinas from the Mindanao provinces situated in Region IX, SOCCSKSARGEN, and ARMM. There is only one Filipina from Visayas, particularly in Region VIII. The majority are from Luzon areas with very few representatives from Mindanao, especially from Visayas provinces. It is also significant to note, from the available data, that six of them resettled and currently reside in Metro Manila.
Five Filipinas were born in the Philippines but currently reside in other countries, with the United States as the most common location, while six Filipinas are both born and currently reside outside the country. All eleven of them come from Europe and North America.
There is a perceivable disparity between regional representatives of Filipinas within the country. Of the seventeen regions in the Philippines, only eight are represented. Moreover, they are only from one province out of the many other provinces situated in those regions. The same can be said about the diaspora Filipinas who lack diversity of geographical location. For example, there are none from Africa and Philippines' neighboring Asian countries. There are also no Filipinas featured that come from the leading destinations of OFWs like Hongkong, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. Filipinas with nomadic lifestyles could also be considered. Their traveling and living in different places around the globe, without staying at permanent locations would provide a unique transnational Filipina experience.
Professional Diversity
In our analysis of the previously featured Filipinas’ professional diversity, we have categorized their primary professions into the following fields: Arts and Communication, Sports, Business Administration and Marketing, Social Welfare, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Of the thirty-nine featured women, seventeen of them are working in the field of Arts and Communication. Table 1 shows the names of the women and their corresponding professions:
Table 1
|
Arts and Communication |
||
|
Profession |
Names |
No. of women |
|
Actress/ Motivational Speaker |
Angel Locsin, Asia Jackson, Megan Young, Jessica Cox |
4 |
|
Journalists/ Publisher |
Jia Tolentino, Pia Ranada, Ces Drilon, Kara Magsanoc- Alikpala, Vicky Morales-Reyno, Joanne Rae Ramirez, Elda Rotor |
7 |
|
Filmmaker/ Director |
Cathy Garcia-Molina, Antoinette Jadaone, Josie Trinidad |
3 |
|
Visual/ Performing Artists |
Rian Gonzalez, Ruby Ibarra, Stella Abrera |
3 |
|
Total: 17 |
||
From this data, Journalists/Publishers are the greatest in number, consisting of seven out of the seventeen women working under Arts and Communication. This is followed by four Actresses/Motivational Speakers, three Filmmaker/Directors, and three Visual/Performing Artists.
On the other hand, eight Filipinas are professionals in the Business Administration and Marketing field. Table 2 shows their names and their corresponding professions:
Table 2
|
Business Administration and Marketing |
||
|
Profession |
Names |
No. of women |
|
CEO/ Entrepreneur |
Kim Lato, Justine Cordero, Hershey Hilado, Sharon G. Dayoan, Zara Carbonell |
5 |
|
Restaurateur |
Jessie Sincioco, Rowena Romulo |
2 |
|
Advertising |
Merlee Jaymee |
1 |
|
Total: 8 |
||
The number of Filipinas working as CEO/Entrepreneurs is five, which is more than half of the total tallies of women working in the Business Administration and Marketing field. This is followed by two Restaurateurs, and one Filipina working in Advertising.
In Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, there are a total of five Filipina professionals. Their names and their corresponding professions are presented in Table 3:
Table 3
|
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics |
||
|
Profession |
Names |
No. of women |
|
Data Scientist |
Dr. Reina Reyes, Erika Legara |
2 |
|
Doctor |
Dr. Fe del Mundo |
1 |
|
Engineer |
Regina Manzana-Sawhney |
1 |
|
Nutritionist |
Kim King |
1 |
|
Total: 5 |
||
From this data, there isn’t a big gap between the number of women in the different professions under Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Two are Data Scientists, one is a Doctor, one is an Engineer, and the last one is a Nutritionist.
There are four Filipinas working in the field of Social Welfare. Their names and their corresponding professions are shown in Table 4:
Table 4
|
Social Welfare |
||
|
Profession |
Names |
No. of women |
|
Government official |
Leni Robredo |
1 |
|
Humanitarian |
Yasmin Busran-Lao, Macy Lee, Tasha Tanjutco |
3 |
|
Total: 4 |
||
From the table above, there is only one Government official while there are three Humanitarians working in the field of Social Welfare.
Lastly, there are five women who are working in the field of Sports as Athletes, as presented in Table 5:
Table 5
|
Sports |
||
|
Profession |
Names |
No. of women |
|
Athlete |
Kaizen dela Serna, Alex Eala, Dzi Gervacio, Michele Bumgarner, Cam Rodriguez |
5 |
|
Total: 5 |
||
Our team also listed down the Additional Professions that a few of the featured Filipinas have. Apart from their primary professions, Angel Locsin, Dr. Fe del Mundo, Regina Manzana-Sawhney, and Sharon Dayoan are also Humanitarians, mostly as leaders and co-founders of non-profit organizations. Meanwhile, Antoinette Jadaone, Dzi Gervacio, and Rowena Romulo are also Entrepreneurs besides their primary professions. Actress Megan Young and Entrepreneur Zara Carbonell are also working as Models. Apart from being a Musical Artist, Ruby Ibarra is also a Director, while Actress Asia Jackson is also working as a Producer. Dr. Reina Reyes and Erika Legara are Educators besides their work as Data Scientists. Lastly, Motivational Speaker Jessica Cox is also a professional Pilot.
Based on the collated data, the professions featured in Fearless Filipinas and Fearless Filipinas II are dominated by the Arts and Communications field, with a total of seventeen out of thirty-nine women. Business Administration and Marketing comes second, with a total number of eight women working under this field. The category of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and the field of Sports are third on the list, both with a total of five professionals each. Lastly, Social Welfare has the least number of professionals, only garnering four out of thirty-nine women in total.
Our team has observed that there’s a small number of public service careers featured in FF and FF II. Professions such as public school teachers, healthcare workers, social workers, and the like are still in need of further attention and acknowledgment. Likewise, there’s a limited number of community leaders or professionals featured who are advocates of other marginalized sectors such as the urban poor, Persons with Disabilities, farmers, and fisherfolks. Although many of the featured Filipina’s additional professions are humanitarians, highlighting more professionals who are working directly with and for the aforementioned sectors would garner new perspectives and generate a deeper understanding of social and economic issues.
Social Media Reach:
We mainly referred to numerical data in order to measure the social media reach of the Fearless Filipinas we wrote about in our previous books. By looking into the follower count of each of their social media accounts and/or pages, we found that out of the 39 women, 22 use Facebook, 25 use Twitter, and 28 use Instagram actively.
We based our findings on the professional Facebook accounts and pages of the Fearless Filipinas as these contain posts that provide information about their professional ventures and shed light on their achievements that relate to their field. We did the same for Instagram and Twitter, but as the women’s personal lives could intertwine with their career, it could be said that we also somewhat looked into their personal accounts as we looked into their professional ones.
In line with the above, we were able to observe that the women we featured tended to have fewer than 10,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This was the case for Cam Rodriguez, Dr. Reina Reyes, Jessie Sincioco, Joanne Ramirez, Josie Trinidad, Justine Cordero, Kim Lato, Merlee Jayme, Michele Bumgarner, Regina Manzana-Sawhney, Rowena Romulo, and Yasmin Busran-Lao.
However, although some only have thousands of followers on a particular social media account or page, they are able to outnumber this count through another social media platform. For instance, although Asia Jackson, Dzi Gervacio, Kaizen Dela Serna, and Zara Carbonell only have 1,000 - 10,000 followers on Facebook, they have 10,000 - 1,000,000 followers on Instagram.
As Facebook continues to be the most used social media platform in the Philippines, it might come off as a surprise that some of our featured Fearless Filipinas have generated more followers on Instagram. As such, given their varying follower count on social media, it could be deduced that individuals outside of the Philippines (or aren’t Filipinos) were able to increase their social media reach on Instagram to a certain extent.
The same could be said to Alex Eala and Jessica Cox, two of the featured Fearless Filipinas who aren’t currently based in the Philippines. Although the number of followers they have on Facebook is higher than on Instagram, people who reside in other countries could be contributing to their popularity in the online landscape.
It might also be worth noting that most of the Fearless Filipinas don’t use all three of the aforementioned social media platforms. While personalities such as Merlee Jayme and Michele Bumgarner only use Instagram and Twitter, others such as Dr. Fe del Mundo, Elda Rotor, and Erika Legarda completely don’t (or are just inactive), which could be minimizing their online reach in the Philippines.
So although the previous volumes of Fearless Filipinas were only able to feature five women (i.e., Angel Locsin, Ces Drilon, Leni Robredo, Macy Lee, and Megan Young) with more than five million followers on social media, continuing to write about those with minimal social media presence (i.e., fewer than a million) could further spotlight the experiences that other Filipinas have fearlessly conquered but are yet to share with the wider Filipino public.
LGBTQIA Diversity:
In regards to LGBTQIA+ diversity, we found that none of the people listed are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. At the very least, none of them have come out as a member of the community, which shows an underrepresentation of women who fall within the spectrum. However, it is notable to mention that there are four people from the list who have been open about their support and allyship for the LGBTQIA+ community. These include Megan Young, Leni Robredo, Angel Locsin, and Asia Jackson.
Based on these findings, more women who are within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum could be invited to share their stories and experiences, especially those who are based within the Philippines. Highlighting local queer Filipinas would be important since most coverages of local queer stories, whether through fiction or nonfiction, are focused on gay men and their experiences. This would be an opportunity to feature the stories of more women, which would not only provide more representation for the community, but also allow a space for them to talk about their identity. Amidst the conservative values the majority of the Philippines still holds regarding LGBTQIA+ rights and misconceptions they may have, these stories could be enlightening and possibly inspire other women with their identities. While featuring more LGBTQIA+ allies is also recommended, having a focus on the queer experience could be prioritized as these are direct accounts from members of the LGBTQIA+ community and they are able to provide more insight regarding representation and other related issues.
Recommendations:
In conclusion, based on our findings, we’d like to call out for Filipinas that fit at least one of the following demographic conditions:
- Generation Z (born between 1996-2010)
- As more and more of Generation Z are entering leadership roles, it is important that we show these young Filipinas examples of how being young doesn’t mean that they are incapable of the great successes that the Filipinas of older generations have achieved.
- Was born or raised in the provinces (preferably Visayas or Mindanao) or abroad
- While working in the urban and more developed areas of the country may bring more opportunities, it is undeniable that there are plenty of examples of Filipinas that broke through these geographical boundaries and showed how they excelled in their own respective fields.
- Is part of the Public Service industry
- Educators, frontline workers, social workers
- People in such industries will be able to showcase a clearer picture of what it feels like to be a Fearless Filipina in current times, as they are one of the most affected industries due to the pandemic. How did such Filipinas overcome the adversities of a global pandemic and still showcase fearlessness and excellence?
- Is part of the Humanitarian industry
- Advocating for the marginalized sectors
- Allowing professionals from such industries would exhibit new perspectives and give the public a deeper understanding of social and economic issues, especially the issues that our country currently faces.
- Is part of the LGBTQIA+ community
- Being able to show perspectives by people in the community would not only advocate for the community but will also empower the community to not be ashamed of their identities but rather be inspired and motivated to attain success.
Call for Nominations:
If you or anyone you know meets the aforementioned conditions and would like to be featured in Fearless Filipinas III, please don't hesitate to contact us at hello@bookshelf.com.ph or through any of our social media pages!
-Research by Madee Dy, Samantha Toloza, Moira Cayabyab, Rhea Pulgado, and Marie Frances Joson