HOTSPOT
When Congress passed and the President enacted in 2019 a “National Campus Press Freedom Day Act” or Republic Act 11440, the day chosen was July 25.
July 25 was the day in 1931, when editors from The National of National University, Philippine Collegian of the University of the Philippines, The Varsitarian of the University of Santo Tomas, and The Guidon of the Ateneo de Manila University came together to form the College Editors Guild of the Philippines.
Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, who later would become the exponent of student activism and a war hero, was elected as the guild’s first president.
By December 1932, the guild was already flexing its influence and activism on the national stage when Vinzons and co-founder Ernesto Rodriguez led campus journalists in opposing a bill raising the salaries of members of House of Representatives.
Vinzons and fellow guilder Arturo Tolentino would later initiate the Young Philippines Party, the first of its kind in the country, signaling boldly their desire to participate in the affairs of the nation.
Decades ahead of other organizations and the nation, the guild elected in 1937 its first female president, Helena Z. Benitez of the Philippine Women’s University.
Vinzons blazed the trail for the guilders: member of the 1934 Constitutional Convention at age 24 and governor of Camarines Norte at age 40. He was elected a member of Congress but the war intervened. He organized Bicol’s guerrilla resistance and died a martyr’s death in the hands of the Japanese imperial forces.
The guild’s congresses and conventions became events for fellowship among editors who are normally competitive. Its traditions included an annual beauty pageant.
When the political and economic crises hit the country in 1970, guilders elected Collegian editor-in-chief Antonio Tagamolila as CEGP president. It served as a watershed moment for the guild, with editors professing the belief that student publications play a role not just in reporting what’s happening, but also in raising their awareness and consciousness, and asserting the youth’s role in the nation.
At that time and for decades since, the guild’s member-students publications’ collective print runs rivaled those of the national newspapers. Several student publications would also be able publish weekly or fortnightly issues regularly.
No surprise then that Tagamolila serialized in the pages of the Collegian the essential activist book Philippine Society and Revolution, and thus made it available to everyone interested in changemaking.
The roster of guild presidents since 1931, and those of guild’s member-publications, include prominent names in media, politics, business and other fields, past and present: Senator Helena Z. Benitez, House Speaker Ramon Mitra, House members Leonardo Perez, Ambrosio Padilla, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Satur Ocampo, and Teodoro Casino, journalism professor Marichu Lambino, Journalist Malou Mangahas, University of the Philippines president Angelo Jimenez, and Len Olea of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
Guilders also courageously followed Vinzon’s war-time martyrdom. Honored in the Bantayog ng mga Bayani are the names of many guilders and editors like Tagamolila, Liliosa Hilao, Enrique Voltaire Garcia II, and Ditto Sarmiento whose editorial team coined the eternal question “Kung hindi tayo kikibo, sinong kikibo? Kung di tayo kikilos, sinong kikilos?”
In newsrooms of newspapers and media outlets, one would find guilders among editors, reporters, photojournalists and staff. The trainings and experiences in the guild and our student publications provide a good starting point for us, and also a conversation starter with editors, when we first join the mainstream media.
My own time as features staffwriter and media bureau director of the UPLB Perspective, and as the guild’s assistant vice president for Luzon and national deputy secretary-general, played a role in making me ready for what was to come later: work for cause-oriented groups, press officer for Ka Satur in Congress, reporter for Malaya, and then as columnist for this paper. The national network of guilders of my time became life-long friends.
The many changes in the guild’s, journalism’s and nation’s histories are reflected in the switch from its old motto “A drop of ink makes millions think” to “To write is to choose.”
Campus journalism and the world are evolving. Campus journalists are not just publishing newspapers. They have Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube to use and to master. While the school walls and fences have crumbled, these social media channels, algorithm and artificial intelligence present both promise and peril. The guilders today would write their own record and achievements on campus journalism of their time, of this time.