Shedding light on issues that truly concern the community remains the foremost duty of journalists serving as the fourth estate—the watchdog of democracy and the voice that keeps power honest. In academic institutions, campus journalism inherits this mandate with no lesser weight. It exists to inform, to challenge, and to represent the realities of students who deserve to know what unfolds within the walls that shape their education.
“When the press is controlled, the truth stops functioning as a right; it becomes a privilege rationed at the discretion of authority.”
In De La Salle Lipa (DLSL), press freedom seems to operate within boundaries drawn by those uncomfortable with being held accountable. Despite the protections stated in the Campus Journalism Act of 1991, which secure student publications’ independence and shield them from prior restraint, the campus press continues to navigate invisible barriers that tighten whenever the truth threatens to expose flaws in the halls of leadership.
When the press is controlled, the truth stops functioning as a right; it becomes a privilege rationed at the discretion of authority.
Transparency as a bargaining chip
The annual Lasallian Cup is held to foster camaraderie and sportsmanship across the campus and is an event the student body deserves to witness through transparent and independent coverage. Yet this year, the access given to the press was not just limited, but outright refused. Reporters from the publication were told that they were not permitted to receive information about the campus-wide affair unless they first sign the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) by the Student Government (SG).
The MOA itself is a mechanism of restraint masquerading as formality. It dictates that the campus press may only perform tasks explicitly listed within the agreement, reducing the publication’s role to what the SG finds acceptable. And even more telling: without signing the MOA, the press is denied vital information, such as access needed to cover the Lasallian Cup, along with withheld schedules, and refusals to release game scores or basic event data, thereby weaponizing transparency itself. This move is not merely procedural, it is also political. The student press established to inform the student body now finds its reach constrained by the very leaders it is tasked to hold under scrutiny.
“True freedom of the press is disruptive by nature. It exposes cracks, confronts contradictions, and refuses to be tamed by convenience.”
At its core, the SG’s conditional approach signals an attempt to regulate how the press watches over them. By determining which duties are “allowed,” and by restricting access unless the press adheres to their terms, they blur the line between governance and gatekeeping. And once that line disappears, oversight becomes impossible. They can not claim to represent the students while demanding a level of control that opposes the very idea of accountability.
Such inhibited freedom diminishes the value of the Campus Journalism Act. It transforms the publication from an independent body into an extension of those it should be able to question, critique, or investigate. And when those in power can influence reportage, press freedom dies quietly in MOAs drafted to appear harmless.
Dismissing the fourth estate
Control is one issue. Misunderstanding is another—and it is just as damaging.
Within the institution, the role of journalism is often regarded with alarming indifference. Faculty members view it not as a public service but as an optional hobby, a club who writes Facebook captions and holds cameras for documentation. During coverage, reporters were faced with dismissive questions from professors, “Ano bang ginagawa ninyo sa Lavoxa?”, revealing a deeper, more pervasive ignorance of what journalism exists to accomplish.
Journalists document, interrogate, and witness. They inform students of the events and issues inside, and beyond, the campus. To belittle this role delegitimizes the work of student journalists and implicitly encourages a culture where pressing questions are unwelcome. It teaches students that asking for clarity is misconduct and power should not be challenged.
When the very educators tasked with teaching critical thinking invalidate a legitimate component of democratic society, they inadvertently reinforce systems of silence. They become participants in the same culture that allows restrictions to pass unnoticed. They contribute to an environment where journalism is tolerated only when it benefits them but dismissed when it dares to scrutinize.
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The phrase “free press” loses meaning when every act of journalism is weighed against what administrators or student leaders prefer. When access is denied unless certain conditions are met, when publishing stories are discouraged, when editors must consider the political consequence of every headline, freedom becomes ceremonial and not functional.
True freedom of the press is disruptive by nature. It exposes cracks, confronts contradictions, and refuses to be tamed by convenience. Yet in DLSL, exercising this freedom comes with consequences–subtle exclusions, strained relationships, withheld information, and institutional pushback.
An institution that controls its press does not cultivate responsible citizens, it creates obedient ones. It teaches compliance over courage, silence over speech, and self-interest over truth. A press that cannot probe power ceases to be one and survives only as decoration, a badge of democratic performance without the substance that gives it meaning.
Without a free press, no institution can claim to serve its people. It can only claim to dictate them.
