Flash Points: Campus Journalists Under Pressure

Campus journalists are alarmed over the increasing attacks on the campus press – from the killing of a campus writer and student leader early this year to censorship and non-collection of publication funds.

By COLLEGE EDITORS GUILD OF THE PHILIPPINES (CEGP)
Bulatlat.com

2002 may yet prove to be the worst year for campus publications.

One, CEGP’s own vice president for Mindanao was murdered early this year by bloodthirsty men-in-uniform in what they claim to be an encounter with the New People’s Army.

Two, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) is being slandered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), openly incriminating it to a grand plot to overthrow the government. This, not to mention what the President herself implied when she called her critics “Abu-Sayyaf lovers, un-Filipino, and communists.”

Three, member publications and editors are being tagged as subversives and incorporated into the AFP’s order of battle (read: hit list), placing the lives of our colleagues in grave danger (as we prove time and again how ruthless many AFP members can be to innocent civilians).

Four, even the student publications of the country’s premier state university system are no longer spared from the school administrations’ meddling and paranoia.

Five, the rate of increase of cases of campus press freedom violations nationwide continue to go up due to still existing flawed laws such as the Campus Journalism Act of 1991 and anti-student policies in countless schools nationwide.

The above-mentioned points, listed in no particular order of importance, all deserve our most militant indignation and equally appropriate attention. All these constitute grave threats to our democratic rights to uphold our responsibilities as true-blooded journalists and advocates of meaningful societal change. All these atrocities against the campus press translate to violations of our Constitutionally mandated rights to freedom of speech, expression, organization and the people’s right to know.

Relentlessly suppressed

In the University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) campus, the integrity of the selection of the newly appointed editor in chief (EIC) of its student publication, the UPLB Perspective, has been compromised by the UPLB chancellor himself. Chancellor Wilfredo David’s intrusion is at the least a grave act of disrespect to the integrity of the selection process. Last April 17, the chancellor appointed third placer Nicolo Masakayan as EIC after Dr. Leonardo Chua, chairman of the Editorial Examination Committee, reportedly manipulated the examination scores to produce a tie between examinees Mari Zaira Lopez and Nicolo Masakayan. Lopez was originally recommended by the committee for the Chancellor to appoint as next EIC.

Last February, editors of UP Cebu’s Tug-ani were suspended for criticizing their own editorial examination committee and were later expelled from the university. The UP Cebu Student Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) ruled that the six editors were guilty of malicious “defamatory imputations” and “gross deliberate discourtesy and misconduct” against the faculty judges. They had been slapped with a libel case then pursued by some faculty members until the expulsion verdict was handed down by the administration. Tug-ani members to date experience censorship and harassment.

UP Manila’s official student publication, The Manila Collegian (MC), likewise experienced harassment and intimidation from some faculty members of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the Department of Military Science and Tactics – Reserve Officers Training Corps (DMST-ROTC). Members of the publication have been charged with gross disrespect to a faculty member for an article published in the annual lampoon issue and were given excessive disciplinary action by requiring them to publish consecutive letters of apologies in their issues and to put up wall statements with the same tone of contrition. 

A few weeks earlier this month, CAS Dean Marilou Nicolas filed a complaint before the Office of Student Affairs charging the MC with “intrusion constituting grave misconduct with malicious intent”. This case pertains to a recent CAS faculty general assembly covered by members of the publication. This shows how some sectors perceive as malicious what student journalists deem legitimate issues and therefore newsworthy.

Aside from the harassments experienced by some members of the MC under the hands of ROTC officers last school year, it was reported that the DMST commandant himself continues to berate the MC for publishing exposés “derogatory” to the school’s and the AFP’s “good reputation”. The MC has been earlier tagged by some DMST-ROTC officers, including the commandant, as “anay ng (termites of) UP Manila” for figuring in the nationwide Abolish ROTC campaign. It was also reported that members of the MC have been under ROTC surveillance for the past years.

Meanwhile, five out of seven college publications in UP Manila are subjected to non-mandatory collection of funds, virtually paralyzing the publications’ operations. This perennial problem is already tantamount to closure of publications and it is evidently a problem in all UP units. Add to that the non-existent publication equipment/facilities. Lack of publication funds is also manifested by the gap between volume of publication per issue and the student population. The Catalyst, official student publication of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), has a 1:4 copy to student ratio while the Philippine Collegian of UP Diliman has a 1:2 ratio.

Editors of The Catalyst were threatened with suspension and experienced intimidation from administration officials. These threats began after it published an article on the alleged corruption involving the university president. For The Communicator of the PUP-College of Languages and Mass Communication, collection of publication fees during enrolment period remains non-mandatory.

Unreasonably sanctioned

Last February, The Regina, official student publication of the University of the Assumption in San Fernando, Pampanga was closed down, its editors and staff suspended, and advisers replaced for releasing a lampoon issue in October 2001. The lampoon was allegedly a paradigm of “unethical exercise of campus press freedom.” But it was evident that the harsh sanctions were unnecessary and beyond the violations that they may have committed.

The Voice of Talamban (VOT), University of San Carlos (USC-Cebu) College of Engineering’s official student publication, was effectively closed when the USC administration judged it guilty “of publishing a false and malicious attack on the person, reputation and honor” of a USC faculty member. The VOT released a news article on December 12, 2000 on the said faculty member’s alleged inconsistencies in his grading system as complained by some engineering students. Although the VOT tried to get the said faculty member’s side, the latter refused. Instead, the latter referred the VOT to his lawyer. Weeks later, he filed a complaint against the VOT for “malicious intent and defamation”.

The VOT and its editorial board have been suspended from writing and publishing articles for school year 2002-2003. The editorial board was also ordered to post a written apology on the Talamban Post (official wall news) and the Peryodikit of Today’s Carolinian. Collection of funds for the VOT has likewise been suspended.

Still closed

Until now, The National and Pintig ng Diwa, official student publications of the National University and Philippine School of Business Administration respectively, have not been revived. The National, one of the founding members of the CEGP, has been closed since the early 1980s. The school’s repressive policies prohibit the entry of student publications, flyers and pamphlets unless approved by the NU administrators. Pintig ng Diwa on the other hand has been closed since 1992. Talks between the CEGP, members of student councils and concerned student organizations are ongoing to re-establish the two publications.

There are hundreds more cases of violations of campus press freedom that need to be documented and addressed. Threats of closure, harassment, suspension and expulsion of publication members, non-collection or withholding of funds, censorship, meddling by advisers, surveillance and other forms of suppression continue to hound the campus press.

Legalized repression

The seriously-flawed Campus Journalism Act of 1991 (CJA of 1991), in the hands of devious school administrators, continues to kill student publications nationwide. The CJA legalizes the non-mandatory collection of publication fees, creating a climate that denies students of the lifeblood of their publications, ultimately denying them of their right to press freedom. Although the House of Representatives has recognized its flaws within the span of ten long years, the proposed amendments, by focusing on the financial aspect of the CJA, still fail to address the roots of campus press freedom violations.

Many policies, memoranda, circulars, student handbooks and other repressive tools can be employed at will against student publications, organizations and councils who, in the course of advancing the students’ democratic rights and welfare, go against the interests of the school administrators.

Writers and makers of history

Being a clear threat to the unjust and exploitative structures of society, the campus press is one of the most vulnerable to attacks by unscrupulous school administrators and bloodthirsty fiends in the present regime. Thus, the urgent need to strengthen our ranks and gain victories by linking arms with our publishers – the students and the people. We need to grasp firmly the lessons of history and, through collective and militant advocacies, fight for press freedom, democratic rights and welfare.

In this age of worsening political and economic crises, the campus press remains to be a potent catalyst for social change. Student publications are not only writers and chroniclers of history. For the truths being revealed and the advocacies being carried forward that across social boundaries, they serve as an alternative press for the students and the people. Student publications are indeed also makers of history. Posted by Bulatlat.com

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