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 Banos (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 exposes 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 members 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....
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 Banos (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 exposes 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 members 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....
Posted by Bulatlat.com
*tsk, tsk. Di ko mucomment for fear of... And that's stupid coz this is my blog. Diba? But kung personalan na ang usapan... la na akong magagawa. To those who know the issue, let's just talk about it. Kung di pa, don't bother. Madidiscourage lang kayo.
**I'm so glad I'm graduating.
***If my kid's gonna study here, I'm gonna enroll her in the College of Business Administration. more practical and logical. [insert innocent look here].
****I'm gonna shut up now.
2 comments:
mich.. pag.email sa whole story beh.. puede ka mag mirida.. samok c dirg igo ra "ganahan kag chikka?" ala man lang story... cge na!!!
unsa gani imong email ad mam? mas kabalo man dirgy kesa nako. unsa imong cell ad?
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