Campus Press Freedom:
Fighting the Fight That’s Worth Fighting For

Over a hundred campus editors from the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) went to Tagbilaran City, Bohol province for their 61^st national student press convention from April 22-27. The campus journalists, recharged by their summer break, listened to various speakers and then plunged into workshops ranging from opinion column writing to literary criticism. Bulatlat.com was invited to observe the conference and filed this report on the hottest topic of the conference: campus press freedom.

TAGBILARAN, Bohol – College tuitions are due to increase by several-fold this coming school year and students will have even more reason to express their collective protest. But while tuitions increase year after year, the students’ vehicle of grievances – the campus newspaper – is continually being suppressed. On this particular issue, students are up against two things: the suppression of their democratic rights by college owners and administrators and weathering through a pervasive climate of fear.

These problems came up in this week’s 61^st National Student Press Convention of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) held at the Dumadag Farm, Taloto on the outskirts of this central Visayas city. An alliance of more than 750 college student publications nationwide, the CEGP serves as the national center for the advancement of campus press freedom.

To many college papers, the issue of campus press freedom dates back to the martial law years – nearly three decades ago. In Metro Manila, the National University’s student paper National and University of Manila’s own publication have remained closed since Marcos imposed martial law in 1972.

Similarly, The Beacon of the University of Baguio has been closed since 1994. In Tuguegarao, Cagayan, the Louisian Courier of Saint Louis College shut down due to hoarding of funds by the administration. At the University of Northern Philippines, the administration has been withholding funds from various student papers (The Rabbi, NewsCAS, Edifice, Nightingale and The Defender). At the Vargas College, the administration controls the student paper, The Flame, by withholding publication fees and through censorship.

Still, in all six campuses (NU, UM, UB, St. Louis, UNP and Vargas), tuition and other fees keep on rising.

It is a different case in other campuses where college administrators reign over the student press by controlling the collection and disbursement of publication fees, imposing harsh academic requirements on the newspaper staff or outright censorship. At the Sienna College in Quezon City, school owners automatically take 50 percent of the P400 publication fee (for the Red Lily) to fund the administration’s own newsletter. In Meycauayan, Bulacan, funds of the Meycauayan College paper, College Chronicle, are controlled by the publication adviser. At St. Mary’s College in the same town, The Marian Journal is practically run by the administration to promote the image of the institution.

Threats of expulsion or suspension as well as outright censorship are the rule in other papers. Student editors of St. Paul College in Quezon City have decried administration censorship in their paper, The Paulinian. At the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila, editors and staff of The Lance were recently disqualified due to “failure to meet grade requirements.” A similar scenario obtains at the Abra Valley Colleges: staff writers of The Torch are threatened by the administration regarding their grades. Aside from this, every issue of The Torch must pass through the adviser and the approval board where the college president sits as a member.

In Miriam College (formerly Maryknoll) there is a rift between the administration and the college paper, Chi Rho – between ultra-conservative and reactionary rules and press freedom. Recently, in an incident which echoes similar others in the past, the editor and staff were terminated by the administration. Editorial exams are also controlled by the powers-that-be.

The same issues hold true in many other publications, including Cagayan de Oro College’s The Oro Collegian and in Bukidnon State College.

It is highly ironical that in many autonomous colleges of the University of the Philippines, hotbed of student activism particularly in the ‘70s, many campus papers experience constraints. Campus writers of Tug-ani (UP Cebu), Vista (UP Tacloban, Leyte) and other publications have to reckon with censorship, meddling, harassment (including expulsion and suspension) and other forms of repression.

In its press freedom watch for 2000 till mid-2001, CEGP cites the following statistics on the extent of campus press repression throughout the country: closure of publications (2 cases), withholding of funds (38), censorship (24), non-mandatory collection of funds (15), meddling by adviser (31), harassment (22), suspension/expulsion of editors/staff (10) and domicile (38).

The figures do not necessarily tell the whole story; the number of campus newspapers which continue to be victims of repression is probably bigger.

Since the Marcos years when the commercialization of tertiary education went into full swing, college education has become costlier year after year. Yet, while many of such institutions profit by increasing tuition and other student fees, the democratic rights of the studentry including those of school publications continue to be violated by school owners and administrators.

Laws passed as result of student struggles since the ‘70s are violated left and right. In some schools, administrators deliberately conceal from students their rights and protection in a bid to make campus journalists or aspiring writers submissive and non-antagonistic. Such practice is usually resorted to in order to allow the indiscriminate increase of student fees and the commission of other irregularities.

If the recent national press convention in this city is any gauge, the reassertion of student power in the oust-Estrada campaign has unleashed a new energy among campus editors to renew struggles for campus press freedom. There is renewed consensus indeed that such efforts should always be part of the student struggle for genuine reforms in the broader society.  #