We are called to change the world

(Farewell speech to the College Editors Guild of the Philippines delivered during the Guild’s National Student Press Convention at the University of the Philippines-Cebu)

Dear Colleagues in the Campus Press,

I owe enormous thanks to those who tirelessly worked to make the 77th National Student Press Convention and 39th Biennial Student Press Congress possible. Amidst shortcomings, I am delighted to see campus journalists come together at a time when press freedom fighters and advocates are being attacked under a ruthless and murderous tyrant in Malacanang.

As the attacks on press freedom intensify, this gathering does not not only serve as an avenue to keep young journalists abreast to the developments in the field of journalism but more inportantly to unite in the defense of the inherent freedom of the press.

As I write this message in a well-lit coffee shop along Taft Avenue, perhaps, the last I will be writing as the Guild’s National President, I couldn’t help but revisit the past struggles and the victories of the Guild.

In 2012, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines succeeded in reviving our campus paper in National University, The National; which the founder of the Guild once edited. I was then a sophomore student at the University. Immediately after my term as the University Student Council Vice President ended, I became the Editor of The National and afterwards, a secretariat of the CEGP National Office.

CEGP aided in developing and sharpening my journalistic skills but ultimately, the Guild taught me to write not only for the sake of writing or to merely narrate the stories of the world but to effectively do our mandate as writers for the interest of the Filipino people. We must be truthtellers who share the realities of workers, farmers, women and children, youth, and all those oppressed by the reeking system to the Filipino people, and the world.

We are not only watch dogs, but we are vanguards of the people’s struggle for truth, democracy, and justice.

Now more than ever, we are challenged by the very system to live up to our principles and our call, To write is already to choose. With clenched fists, and raised pens, let us change the world!

Uphold Campus Press Freedom!

Long live CEGP!

For a free press,

Jose Mari Tomines-Callueng,

CEGP National President, 2016–2019