PERHAPS it is a by-product of the new illiteracy that many have taken newspapers for granted or don’t read them at all. In the Philippines, we have a term for the new role of newspapers – they are pambalot ng tinapa.
Sad, isn’t it?
Worse, some people think of newspapers as junk. They don’t read them. They turn them over to the junk shop – for a profit.
Just last Oct. 14, right after the end of the final semester, I saw members a Commerce religious group deliberately taking five-inch thick stacks of copies of the newest Varsitarian issue from the dispenser. These copies were sold to a mangtitimbang and then placed in a truck along with old national newspapers and empty soda cans. I got mad because the copies were the latest issue and they had not even been touched and read by the students.
When I confronted the Commerce students, I was shocked to learn that they were members of a religious organization.
They told me that the new copies had been donated by their classmates for a fund-raising campaign. But I asked them how could their classmates had donated the copies if they hadn’t been asked to in the first place? The students could not have had the chance to be consulted because there were no more classes. A girl from this religious organization abrasively told me that their class would surely agree to donating the copies. But had she actually consulted her classmates? She merely assumed that these copies would be donated. And how sure was she that her classmates would not be getting more than their copy of the Varsitarian? As I said, the group was actually lifting stacks and stacks from the dispenser and selling them to the junk shop.
How would that group feel if they were in our shoes? What they did was insult a 74-year-old campus paper that is known to be one of the best, if not the best in the country. Even if they claim that this was done for a noble cause, and not for personal gain, they were still depriving responsible Thomasians of their copies of the Varsitarian.
Has it ever occurred to the religious group that newspapers were born out of the sweat and tears of its editors and writers? It is through their painstaking efforts that newspapers are printed. They devote time and energy in researching and writing articles. Many years from now, the same articles will be used to reconstruct the continuing saga of Asia’s oldest university .
As a dedicated member and editor of the Varsitarian, I am saddened by the way some students treat our beloved school paper. Most Varsitarian staffers make a lot of sacrifices to write articles, take photos, and design illustrations for the Thomasian community. Most forego their social life so that the Thomasian readers may be informed and be equipped to make intelligent decisions. Copies of the Varsitarian are food for the mind and heart, they are not mere scraps for the junk shop.
