CAMPUS JOURNALISM ACT in the Philippines gives a full blast to press freedom among student-journalists. As a matter of fact, there are pros and cons of this journalism act, but there are prevailing factors that can help contribute to the press freedom. This act will protect the campus advisers and writers from harassment and abuse of power to those persons in full authority.
In the Philippines, the campus journalism act is very lenient in the sense that it doesn’t cater a lot to the needs of the people in media industry. It does not give fully the options either to give constructive or destructive comments against the persons in the government or the persons in the private learning institutions. Each writer has to be very careful and not to be abusive of his/her power and privileges.
If there are limitations about the press freedom, the persons in authority ought to be very careful and not to be very abusive in order to thwart from being attacked by the media.
In every school (both public and private) there is a campus paper to let the people, especially the parents know about the projects and activities to be undertaken by the school administrators, teachers, and students.
This kind of act is a laudable endeavor to be recognized by the DepEd officials. Because of this act, promising campus writers are trained and given exposure to hone their talents. Press conferences are held every year. Starting with the division level, it goes to the regional level and finally to the national level. Campus writers, who qualify to the regional level, have the chance to visit different places in the region and those who qualify to the national level have the chance to visit different places all over the Philippines.
However, because of scarcity of funds, there are times when winning campus writers cannot compete with the winners in regional level, much more to the national level. The reason for this is that the schools depend on PTCA (Parent-Teacher-Association) funds’ participation in and out of town press conferences. Sometimes, these are curtailed because either funds are diverted to other purpose or there are no collections at all. It’s disheartening to know that a provision in the DepEd memorandum 203 dated June 5, 2006, stated that the regional trainings of advisers and campus journalists shall be subsidized by the Campus Journalism Funds (CJF).
Based on our experience, our participations in the area, division and even regional press conferences were never subsidized by the CJF. There was an instance when we almost gave up and did not participate in the division schools press conference which was held in Daanbantayan National High School, Daanbantayan, Cebu because we did not have funds for fare, registration and allowance for the contingent. It was really frustrating as we had more than 20 winners in the area level.
Even if the former DepEd Director Mordeno in Region VII emphasized that school paper funds should be deposited in a bank with the principal, adviser and editor-in-chief as signatories, this was not so strictly followed during our times where the majority of advisers, principals and editor-in-chiefs were clamoring for the lack of funds. On the contrary, the PTCA has collected and kept custody of all funds. It can't be denied that they are all responsible for the money collection and students' contributions, not the faculty and principal.
Indeed, campus journalism is a must, as we are a democratic country. Students definitely have the rights to express themselves.
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