03/05/2024
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Campus press freedom, ironically, is being pressed.
Not too recently, a teacher spoke to me and they shared their sentiments on how some student publications seem to put their respective academic institution on a high pedestal, releasing content that spray eau de parfum at the institution instead of the students who they most likely vowed to serve.
In retrospect, when I attended a press conference in Tuguegarao last January, a lecturer shared that the main purpose of student publications must be, in verbatim, โto be a servant of the students, not a slave of the institution,โ which I shared to the said teacher when we were having a talk.
However, I asked them while it is true that the printed and digital media of some student publications nowadays are mostly filled with articles that talk about or praise their respective institution instead of making them student-centric, are the student publications to be entirely blamed?
No, not entirely so.
A fellow student journalist, when we were having coffee last April, shared that as much as they want to write articles that bring student concerns to light and call out their college for issues, they are afraid that the college might cut their budget and withdraw their support to them, which is why they, unfortunately, release more โaudience-friendlyโ articles instead of articles that stir up conversations.
One must not also forget the illustration of the University of Santo Tomasโ censorship over TomasinoWebโs photo merely depicting USTโs College of Information and Computing Sciences standing in front of a 7-Eleven store that, according to the said university, brought โpublic ridiculeโ as the studentsโ uniforms mirror the colors of the convenience store brand.
On a larger scale, Himati, the official student publication of the University of the Philippines Mindanao, was accused of being an โallyโ of the Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front-New Peopleโs Army (CPP-NDF-NPA), along with UP Mindanao alumnus Jayvie Cabajes and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines-Haran. This is among the thousands of recorded violations against press freedom in the Philippines.
Contemporarily speaking, what does this tell us?
Pointing fingers at student publications for aromatizing their institutionโs name is a no-brainer, but in the grand scheme of things, chances of unfavorable situations such as harassment, budget cut, support withdrawal, and red-tagging are heightened once they produce articles that expose the administration and teaching personnel as they have a gun pointed at their head. Hence, we cannot really blame such student publications as they, too, are afraid of opening the pandoraโs box.
Students are the biggest stakeholders of institutions, but our countryโs cycle of impunity has long showed that the exercise of rightful campus press freedom by all means makes them the largest at-stake. As unjust as it may be, let May 3 be a call and a reminder for the student journalists and journalists in general to resist, hold the line, and continue speaking out in photos and words as the more we accept that this is just the way things are, the more likely we will find ourselves forgiving bigger transgressions.