All our hearts were broken on Tuesday as the UST Growling Tigers lost their second straight game against the UP Fighting Maroons. The game was full of stories: it was ex-UST captain CJ Cansino’s first game against the Tigers since transferring to Diliman after the Sorsogon “bubble” controversy in 2020; the Tigers were seeking their first win of the young UAAP season; and it was UST rookie Jordi Gomez de Liaño’s first matchup against UP, the team he played his high school years for.
Of course, The Varsitarian (“V”) chose to focus on Cansino’s “homecoming.” We have covered the Sorsogon saga, UST’s rebuilding, and everything in between. As campus journalists, we are taught how not to sound robotic and seek storylines to provide better reports on events.
Prior to the game, the “V” pursued this angle. We asked Cansino after UP’s loss to Ateneo what he felt about going against his former team the next game and published a quote card on social media and a report on our website containing the ex-Tiger’s words as part of our advancers for the UST-UP game.
After the game, the “V” released a scorecard with the caption, “CJ Cansino and the UP Fighting Maroons use a strong second half to eclipse UST, 98-82. The Tigers have lost their first two #UAAPSeason84 games by a combined 41 points.”
Of course, the Cansino angle was important for the reasons mentioned above. There are Thomasians who seemingly just want to forget the fact that Cansino was a former Tiger and called out the Varsitarian for including his name in the caption. We have been called out in the past for mounting a one-on-one interview with Cansino after he decided to transfer to UP. But Cansino is still a former Tiger, and he’s still an important angle to the UST-UP game on Tuesday.
Those comments are tolerable, but we take exception to a vilifying comment by the fanpage “The Growling Tigers of UST” that read: “Buti pa si CJ nabangit (sic), pero mga players ng UST hindi. PR machinery working within the V.” A “Homer Espiritu” replied to the comment, saying, “May PR machinery? Ibig sabihin ba niyan may nagbabayad sa kanila? Isn’t that corruption? School organ na tumatanggap ng publicity fee? Alam ba ito ng UST Admin?”
Even if Cansino and the UP Maroons have a “PR machinery,” it is another thing to accuse them of paying the Varsitarian for good press, since public relations is, like journalism, a legitimate profession. Journalists and PR publicists are information handlers; they’re media professionals. Those who say that Cansino and his team have a “PR machinery” and that the Varsitarian is being paid to “publicize” them, should be asked where they got the idea that public relations practitioners pay the media for publicity. Is that their experience of public relations? Nagbabayad ba sila for their publicity? Are they themselves involved in corruption?
Those who disparage the “V” on the UST fan page should be reminded that when the Tigers were rebuilding, the “V” ran stories introducing UST’s new recruits to the UST community and reported on what the coaching staff thought they would contribute to the team. Prior to the UAAP, the “V” released infographics containing the names and photos of UST’s new Tigers. There was a point last academic year when almost all of the Varsitarian’s sports content was about the Tigers and their new recruits.
Call the publication out if it releases fake news, but accusing it of being paid by a “PR machinery” just because of an angle it chose to pursue smacks of disinformation and outright lying, much like Rodrigo Duterte would label the critical press “bayaran,” “biased,” and “fake.” Moreover, everyone should be reminded that the Varsitarian is not under the UST administration; it practices editorial independence.
Sports may make us emotional at times, but let’s remain rational. Let’s not do a Duterte.
