Student publications, without a doubt, are one of the most concrete manifestations of the students’ democratic rights. And if the state of college-based publications in UP Diliman (UPD) were any indication, students may have all the reasons to be alarmed.

Of the 19 colleges in UPD offering undergraduate programs, only six regularly release their student publications; the colleges of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Economics, Business Administration (CBA), Law, Engineering (CE), and Science (CS). The rest of the colleges are either struggling with publications operating irregularly, or have no publication at all.

Lack of funds, administration intervention, and repressive policies are the most common issues hounding campus papers, according to Frank Lloyd Tiongson, former chair of Solidaridad, an alliance of student publications and writers’ organizations in the UP system.

Insufficient publication funds
Apart from the P46.50 student fee which goes to the Philippine Collegian and the University Student Council (USC), some college student councils (SC) collect a separate fee ranging from P5 to P50 during the registration period for the SC and the local student publications. Among these colleges, CS charges one of the highest fees, with P30 going to its publication Scientia.

This fee, however, is non-mandatory, leaving the publications with no stable source of funds with which to purchase the necessary equipment or pay a printing press, said Tiongson.

The College of Human Kinetics’ (CHK) student paper Spearhead, for example, last released its regular issue in 1989, according to CHK Professional Studies Chair Dave Bercades. "The P12,000 student fund we get every semester is diverted to other more important college activities," added CHK Student Council (SC) Chair Jannel Rodolfo.

The same predicament holds for the Statistics’ Sample Spacer, Arts and Letters’ Kalasag, Fine Arts’ Spoliarium, Education’s Sulo, and Public Administration and Governance’s Umalahokan.

The School of Library and Information Science, meanwhile, has no existing publication as the P5,000 student fund collected every semester is not enough even for the college SC’s other projects, according to SC Chair Mennie Ruth Viray.

Kalasag and College of Mass Communication’s Tinig ng Plaridel last released their regular issues in 2006, with the latter resorting to wall news today as a means of disseminating information.

The release of Logscript, CE’s student publication, started depending on sponsorships and advertisements after the CE-SC stopped collecting funds last semester. The collection of Logscript fee, then required during enrolment, was recently suspended as it was not approved by the Board of Regents.

CBA, on the other hand, has The Guilder, with online, broadsheet, and magazine versions. Its funds, however, come from a subscription fee of P80 and solicitations, according to its editor Anisah Azis.

Suppression by the administration
Repression by local college administrations has also caused the cessation of at least two college publications’ operations.

Asian Institute of Tourism’s (AIT) Lakbay failed to release its regular issue this semester following the publication of a popularity survey during AIT Dean Corazon Rodriguez’s bid for a second term, where she got the lowest rating, said its Business Manager Archivald Baluyot.

According to Baluyot, the college administration refused to let them use facilities, such as a computer and the publication room, after the unfavorable report. Graduating staff members also feared reprisal from the administration should they insist on running the publication, he added.

College of Social Work and Community Development’s (CSWCD) Kolektibo also failed to receive funding from the college administration, with its last release in 2006. CSWCD Representative to the USC Anton Dulce said the administration claimed that the Collegian can very well cover issues concerning the college given its small size.

Both the AIT and the CSWCD administrations, however, denied the allegations.

Menacing policies
According to Tiongson, repressive national policies are also veritable threats in the exercise of campus journalism. He cited as examples Republic Act (RA) 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act (CJA) and, most recently, RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

Enacted in 1991, RA 7079, supposedly providing for the development and promotion of campus journalism, fails to protect the students’ right to a publication, Tiongson said. He added that among its pitfalls are the provision on the non-mandatory collection of publication fees and its failure to provide a penalty clause on violations of its stipulations, rendering the law practically futile.

The College Editors Guild of the Philippines, together with its member-publications across the nation, has long been calling for the scrapping of CJA.

In 2006, the Collegian also ceased regular publication after its editorial board (EB) refused to submit to an administration-led bidding process in the selection of its printing press, as mandated for “government entities” by RA 9184.

The UPD administration then refused to release the publication’s funds. The paper’s EB, however,maintained that the Collegian is an independent student institution, not a government agency, and should thus not be covered by RA 9184.

Senate Bill (SB) 2845, proposed by Senator Francis Pangilinan and pushed for by the UP administration to replace the university’s outdated charter, also poses new threats to campus press freedom, said Tiongson.

Based on the proposed UP Charter, the existence of student publications is not guaranteed but still dependent on consultations with students, Tiongson said. “Such consultations can easily be manipulated by the administration, which has always been antagonistic to the campus press.”

Tiongson noted that it is amid this growing number of threats to and problems in the critical and healthy practice of campus journalism that the “students are once again called upon to reassert their basic right to a publication that will genuinely serve their interests.”

“More than simply being alarmed, it’s high time that [the students] fight back and reclaim what is rightfully ours,” he said.# Philippine Collegian

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