HOTSPOT
By TONYO CRUZ
Tonyo Cruz
Just recently, President Duterte signed Republic Act 11440 declaring July 25 as Campus Press Freedom Day in the country.
Why July 25? The law did not say it, but it is the founding date of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP).
Former CEGP president Teddy Casino filed the original bill in his tenure as Bayan Muna representative in Congress, together with another CEGP alumnus, Satur Ocampo.
The CEGP was founded on July 25, 1931, by editors of the The National of National University, The Varsitarian of the University of Santo Tomas, The Philippine Collegian of the University of the Philippines, and The Guidon of Ateneo de Manila University. (Do note: The CEGP is two decades and a year older than the National Press Club.)
July 25 is also the birthday of CEGP founder and The National editor Ernesto Rodriguez.
Wenceslao Vinzons, a war-time hero and in whose honor the UP student center, was named, was among the leading lights of the CEGP in its early years.
The rising student movement leading to the First Quarter Storm of 1970 transformed the CEGP and many of its members, smashing the invisible lines drawn separating student publications from national issues.
On his election as CEGP president, Philippine Collegian editor-in-chief Antonio Tagamolila said “the victory of progressives is the signal of the birth of a new, progressive College Editors Guild of the Philippines.”
When martial law was declared in 1972, Ferdinand Marcos shut down the campus press around the country and Tagamolila and many student journalists joined the underground resistance to the dictatorship. Many would end up as martyrs of the democratic cause.
By the mid-1970s, the student movement succeeded in reopening the shuttered student publications or opening new ones such as the UPLB Perspective. The campus press would then play a key role as part of the “mosquito press” that annoyed and exposed Marcos government.
The CEGP was reconstituted in the early 1980s, thanks to the efforts of campus journalists. It was a culmination of hard work to provide students and the general public with alternative sources of pro-student and pro-people news, features, literary pieces, art, and commentary.
Up until today, the combined circulation of the country’s biggest campus papers could rival those of our national newspapers.
Since the 1990s, the CEGP has become the national center for the advancement of campus press freedom. As a national organization, it has been unapologetic and instead proud of its patriotic and democratic leaning on campus and national issues.
Up until today, there is no other country in Asia and the Pacific with a youth organization such as the CEGP.
Campus Press Freedom Day Law is a triumph for Bayan Muna and the CEGP.
The law of the land now includes this state policy: “As part of media, the campus press is an important institution in promoting and protecting the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression.”
Under Republic Act 11440, schools, colleges, and universities, as well as the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education, and other state agencies, are to render “full support and assistance” to the holding of programs and activities for the annual observance of National Campus Press Freedom Day.
We will find out next year how the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police would mark Campus Press Freedom Day. Its officers and men have tagged the CEGP as “a communist front” and demonized its alumni as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Campus journalists are highly-respected in the nation’s schools because they are among the most creative and most articulate. They would reject and debunk any claim that they are prone or easy to be manipulated. If they harbor views deemed “dangerous” by the AFP and PNP, they could not have arrived at holding those views only because they were “influenced” or “infiltrated” by communists.
CEGP alumni all over the country will also rise in defense of the Guild and the right to free expression, as they have done multiple times when they were students and after they have left the CEGP to join bigger causes or the professions. At any given moment, one would find CEGP alumni among the top editors of the country’s major newspapers and broadcast and digital news outlets.
The red-tagging by AFP and PNP against the CEGP is nothing more than “shooting the messenger” or fake news.
It is not the fault of campus journalists if the president idolizes the dictator. It is not the fault of campus journalists that the killings of suspected drug addicts and pushers, including children and youth, have failed in stamping out the drug menace. It is also not the fault of the campus journalists that the Chinese government had invaded our islands and seas. Campus journalists were also the ones who released heinous crime convicts, including rapists and murderers. Neither did campus journalists tamper with history by embracing and whitewashing Marcos martial law.
Are CEGP members and alumni happy with RA 11440? You bet. Is the CEGP scared of red-tagging? I don't think so. We’ve seen worse doble-kara characters before.