HOTSPOT
Becoming a campus journalist was a defining milestone in my student days.
This passion for writing is something tried out, practiced, nurtured, and encouraged – wittingly or unwittingly – by several women.
Of course, my Mama is on top of the list. A public school teacher, she was restless and relentless in trying and practicing innovative teaching methods. She authored manuals and reference books, and presented papers in conferences. She would use audio-visual aids to communicate more effectively with students. (One of her granddaughters was pleasantly surprised to hear her teacher mention Mama’s full name in a class lecture. She proudly shouted, “That’s my lola!”)
Then, there’s Mrs. Zumbeline Soriano, one of our English teachers in Manila Science in the early 1990s. I will always remember her because she was the first teacher who told me I could write and encouraged me to write more. She believed in me and in my capacity to write well. Her belief in me gave me the confidence to practice further and to read more widely.
Mrs. Soriano’s encouragement helped in no small way in publishing the clandestine The MaSci Times for about a year before a snitch brought me to the administration and nearly resulted in my expulsion. The underground paper was laid out and printed at our favorite computer shop at Anglo Arcade near Herran, and reproduced through photocopy machines. Friends helped pass around copies.
Of course, MaSci has official publications. But I felt we needed something freer and not consisting mainly of “contest” material. The pressures of high school, especially in very competitive MaSci, and rants about the lack of freedom, needed expression and a space. That’s what The MaSci Times hoped to do.
Needless to say, I survived that episode, thanks to Mama who stood her ground in a meeting with principal Mrs. Daisy H. Banta. No suspension, no expulsion.
During the freshman convocation at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, I was impressed by Lourie Victor. She was tiny from my vantage point in the cavernous UPLB Auditorium. But then she was introduced as a varsity player, university and college scholar, and editor-in-chief of the UPLB Perspective. She invited us to read and join the paper.
After the convocation, I walked to the Perspective office at S.U. to inquire about the staff application process. I was that impressed.
I would go on to pass the process, and become an apprentice and later features staff writer. I grabbed every opportunity to write opinion columns. Lourie would lead us in conventions and journalism seminars in her capacity as regional chair of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines-Southern Tagalog. Our forays into regional and national press conventions and congresses provided fellowship opportunities among campus journalists.
It was during that time that I found out that student publications from across the UP System enjoy the widest latitude of press freedom and fiscal independence. Many UP publications have charters approved by the UP Board of Regents, with editors-in-chief chosen by a committee. It is up to the editor-in-chief to select his editors and staff. Funds are collected, held in trust, and disbursed by UP. There are no faculty “advisers” for most UP student papers.
Such practices remain the most advanced in the country, and these have enabled UP campus journalists to produce a weekly paper, as in the case of UP Diliman’s Philippine Collegian.
In other universities, varying levels of hard-won independence helped the papers produce their own good campus journalists.
A lot has happened in the media landscape since my college days. The rise of the internet and social media has given students and their student publications new media and unlimited media space. Sadly, other institutions on campus are slow to adapt and insist on trying to control information and expression.
A veteran journalist recently quit as faculty adviser of an online student media publication after the school administration ordered the take-down of a photograph and caused a pause in the publication’s operations. For me, the take-down violates press freedom and discourages students from trying their hand at independent journalism.
The subject photograph, which school officials sought to suppress, has since been published in major national media outlets and shared countless times on social media. Meanwhile, many school alumni, journalists, and students have stood solidly behind the embattled online campus journalists.
This has the makings of a milestone for this generation’s campus journalists. May they find champions who will inspire, encourage and vindicate them.