JOURNALISTS are vital to exposing government corruption and realigning the public’s moral compass, a former UST vice rector said during the thanksgiving Mass marking the Varsitarian’s 98th founding anniversary at the St. Dominic Chapel on Friday, Jan. 16.
Fr. Virgilio Ojoy, O.P., a former Varsitarian associate editor, urged the ‘V’ staff to bring corruption issues to light to increase the public’s awareness of wrongdoings in the government.
“Many Filipinos cannot move up the ladder of social mobility because they are robbed of opportunities. They cannot chase their dreams because the means are stolen from them,” Ojoy said in his homily.
He challenged the publication staff to call for better leadership by pushing government officials to be accountable.
“Expose the corrupt, shame them, tell them that the Gucci and the Rolex they are dangling are stolen from us. Tell them that it (corruption) is not according to the will of God, who desires all the goods of the earth to be shared by all,” Ojoy said, referring to the politicians’ shameless flaunting of their luxurious lifestyles on social media.
Ojoy said journalists should also help the vulnerable by informing them about the truth.
“Let us raise their consciousness and moral compass by making them see the concrete effects of their corruption on people who lost their homes or their property and were killed as the floodwaters mercilessly engulfed them,” Ojoy said.
The Varsitarian, the Philippines’ oldest Catholic newspaper and one of the oldest student publications, was founded on Jan. 16, 1928, by a group of students led by Jose Villa Panganiban, the lexicographer and future director of the National Language Institute.
Last year, the Varsitarian reaped eight awards at the US College Media Association (CMA) Pinnacle Awards – one of the United States’ most prestigious student media competitions.
This makes the Varsitarian the first school paper from the Philippines and Asia to win in multiple categories, in league with top campus US publications such as the University of Texas at Austin’s The Daily Texan, the University of California Los Angeles’ The Daily Bruin, and the University of Michigan’s The Michigan Daily.
Throughout the years, the Varsitarian has produced journalistic and literary titans such as Arsenio Lacson, Felix Bautista, Jose Burgos, Jullie Yap-Daza, Neal Cruz, Jake Macasaet, Francisco Tatad, Antonio Lopez, Alice Colet-Villadolid, Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta, Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, Norma Miraflor, Eric Gamalinda, Vim Nadera, and Eugenia Duran-Apostol.
It has produced four National Artists: Cirilo Bautista, Bienvenido Lumbera, J. Elizalde Navarro and F. Sionil José. Yuvshenka Andrea R. Osea
