NOTE ON STATUS. Pending before the Cebu City Council is an ordinance filed by Councilor Rey Gealon, which seeks to provide “a framework for students’ rights and welfare.” A second public hearing on STRAW, its acronym, was held last February 1, 2023, where support mostly was expressed and concerns, surprisingly, did not include money. It’s due for second reading, according to Atty. Chappy Piramide, chief of the Sanggunian secretariat, said Monday (February 20).
OFTEN AN IRRITANT. Bits of conversation by campus journalists often include the matter of funds. Money for the operations of the student council and the school publication is sometimes used or withheld by the school administration to control student participation in the affairs of the school, particularly on pronouncements of student leaders and writers on sensitive issues in the campus.
Control over funds may lead to control over management of the student government and the student press. Without the money, student government activities may be hamstrung, the school paper may be silenced.
The reason is that the money can be efficiently collected only by the school administration, which has the power to withhold tests or grades to exact payment, along with tuition.
PRESS FREEDOM IN CAMPUS is provided in the two measures. Both the national law -- Republic Act No. 7079, Campus Journalism Act (CJA) of 1991 -- and the pending ordinance in the Sanggunian profess to guarantee the right of students to publish a newspaper or similar publication and determine its editorial policies.
The CJA provides that the publication published by the student body shall be run by an editorial board and staff selected in a “fair and competitive examination.” And its editorial board “shall freely determine its editorial policies and manage its publication’s funds.”
The pending ordinance grants the same rights to publish and run the newspaper according to its own policies.