Campus journalists have vowed to fight repression and red-tagging in schools with the creation of a law that declares July 25 as the National Campus Press Freedom Day.
“The National Campus Press Freedom Day will be an avenue for campus publications and press to advance and assert our right to press freedom,” Grecian Asoy, spokesperson of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) Davao City Chapter, said after the signing of Republic Act No. 11440.
On Tuesday, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the law, which was first introduced by Teodoro A. Casiño, former CEGP national president and representative of the Bayan Muna in the
15th Congress.
Among the forms of campus press repression, CEGP Davao said in a press statement, is the defunding of publications. “Because of this, many school publications could not publish or conduct trainings as well as perform their mandate of delivering relevant issues,” said Asoy.
“Issues of censorship, defunding, and harassment against campus journalists are also rampant in today’s regime. More so, the continuous attacks against alternative and mainstream media outlets coupled with incongruous policies further worsen the current state of the press,” Daryl Angelo Baybado, CEGP national president, in the statement.
