The Eye
GENUINE DUTY
For seven years in a row, CALABARZON once again emerged triumphant in the recently concluded National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) in Lingayen, Pangasinan—yet another proof that the spirit of campus journalism is still alive and thriving in the region. While it was truly a proud moment for winning students and their schools, in the end, it’s important that they know they aren’t just blinded by the bright shine of medals and trophies. Genuine journalism, after all, is built on truth and empowering communities, not just for mere competition.
That’s the challenge this coming NSPC 2020 for both aspiring and experienced campus journalists who’s aiming to win their spot at the nationals this year. Here in Quezon, local schools have already lined up their fair share of qualifiers for the RSPC, a contest preceding the NSPC which will determine the national competitors for each category. The anticipation is real, and it’s only increasing every year as more and more students venture into campus journalism around the country. This means as the competition gets tighter, so will the stress—and that leads student journalists away from the true essence of journalism, which is empowering the masses.
Campus journalism plays a huge part in empowering small communities. It brings people together through their collective stories to share, and brings students even closer to the reality and struggles faced by their own local communities. Here in Lucena City, home to roughly 500 campus journalists, you won’t find the best stories of its wonderful people in the city’s heavily politicized local news channels, nor in the commercialized local radios, rather, you’ll see them best through the eyes of an innocent student journalist whose mere passion is to tell the truth through campus journalism.
That’s how powerful campus journalism is for such a community like Lucena. You won’t hear about the stories of people like Lolo Egoy, for example, a 78 year-old shoemaker who walks barefoot around the city, in the local news channels unless they get good ratings, or profit from his life story. Instead, Lolo Egoy’s inspiring story of hardwork and diligence is known throughout the city because of student journalists who believed his story was worth telling—even without expecting anything in return.
This is how journalism empowers the masses—students tell their truths, tirelessly and bravely, and then they expect nothing but joy and sympathy in return. Campus journalists like them are unique in the field because they’re supposed to be genuine in their work. However, with the continued success of competitive programs like DepEd’s Schools Press Conferences, it is but unavoidable for student journalists today to focus more on winning the contests rather than writing for passion.
So it’s just right that this year’s NSPC focused on keeping the spirit of campus journalism right where it needs to be. Students should be reminded that they began their “#JOURNeys” with the goal of empowering their schools and local community and not because they were in it for the awards alone. Journalism is not for show, and you definitely won’t survive it unless you build enough passion.
Now more than ever, at a time when our journalists and the free press are under attack, should we empower and strengthen the very foundations of our country—its communities. Their small stories of success is a story for all Filipino people and it has to be heard. But that’s impossible unless campus journalists do their part—they must genuinely do their duty and rally behind the masses by giving them a voice, even if it’s hard or even if they get nothing but passion in the end.
DISPOSE THE NEGATIVITY
EFFECTS OF VANDALISM
Zyve Linghui Alimagno
Some of the student herein QNHS Doing the vandalism . They vandal like their name , crushes and anything that all bad effects on our school.
Vandalism caused by the curiosity of the student and to be fame in each of their schools. The people that going the vandalism is to attract many student to do a more vandal in our facilities.
Our facilities are the one who vandal of some student here in QNHS . Our facilities is having a lot of vandals especially the CR places.cimin as aut as the abandoned class rooms . They vandals in secret places and they look there are lack of attention.
CR facilities is having a lot of vandals like the names of fraternity , the name of their crushes and anything also the abandoned rooms has also many vandals like the name of site it comes to pornography.
The effects of doing a vandalism. Can effects the image of our school the dirtiness of our school . The reconductivity of our school
teenage
pregnancy
Use appropriate act not to act like a wost child or youth. Use your mind in good things not to use in early pregnancy . Early pregnancy effect our percentage of our school it will be decreases of our percentage.
The early preagnancy can cause a curiosity of every youth in our society . Pregnancy is for a good age only not in age of minor and youth should clarify of what they doing.
The pregnancy of a minor is a accident only because both of you wants to do that kind of thing and also the good ages should be the one having a child not to have a child with the youth. Also the parents are the should be recognized their child of what they doing .the teenage pregnancy are the one can be depressed by the youth.
The youth should be aware of what they doing and to conduct a more good news with the youth . Having a child is the most happiness experience and also sadnees of experience happy because you will having a child also sadness because of the may struggles of your life.
Canteens and food stalls inside Quezon National High School have recently implemented a new policy for take-out food in response to the highly pervasive plastic pollution problem in the campus. Because of this, school lunches are now being served in banana-leaf covered cones out of manila paper, drawing both praise and criticism from environmental advocates.
The move to ban plastic packaging is made after several previous policies regarding reusables failed to materialize among the students. Back then, students were requested to bring their own reusable tupperwares and tumblers when purchasing canteen food. It wasn’t until school canteens began to realize not everyone really followed the said policy, that they started to act. First, they served take-out lunches inside reusable plastic containers, where students would have to pay an additional price and would have to return with these containers on their next purchase. This was particularly ineffective since most students didn’t really reuse the containers for the most part, and it was highly expensive to provide for the canteens.
Their last and most effective resort was providing banana-leaf paper cones. These ingenious take-out food packaging quickly caught the eyes of many students because of its versatility. The cones can be disposed of with ease—as they don’t pile up that much in trash bins. It’s also very cheap to produce, in addition to being made from 100% biodegradable material. For many, it was really the best course of action in solving the campus’ longstanding plastic problem.
The rising popularity of these paper cones have brought the spotlight to Quezon National High School, and it even made its way to national television after being featured by news outlets like GMA and ABS-CBN. For years, the school administration has passed so many different regulations, often ending up forgotten and flunked—but not once have they made such a difference with this new ban on plastic.
But with the praise, comes criticism. After drawing increased publicity from national media, many netizens were staunch enough to call out the flaws of what was once thought of as a “perfect solution.” This flak centered on how using leaves and paper weren’t good alternatives to plastic as they, according to some netizens, wasted our natural resources.
They claimed that the school should’ve just pursued its old policy of requiring students to bring their own utensils and containers, instead of completely replacing plastic with paper.
However, to put it into perspective, it’s simply a matter of trade-off. Assuming this policy really does cause what they claim, then it’s ultimately a question of choosing the lesser evil for our school. It is obviously more amenable to have 500 small banana trees harvested and chopped for its leaves, rather than having 500 more years of plastic waste.
This ongoing debate is a reflection of just how hard it has become for many communities, schools, and other bodies to implement actual practical policies. It’s an evidence that criticism-turned-cynicism continues to prevent meaningful change from occurring. These so-called environmental netizens in social media should stop having the audacity to say they love the trees simply because they pretend to hate paper so much.
The solution to the plastic problem aren’t words, but action. Quezon National High School has finally done something good for its environment, and that’s more than enough reason not to let these cynical netizens from obstructing its path towards improvement any further.
Short-conned
As issues come flying by that concern the implementation of the Republic Act (RA) 10592, or the “Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law, we really just still can't come up with a conclusion on who we can really blame, is it the implementation itself? The literal existence of the law in general? Or is it what the law states and how these are executed? Many questions, many answers, but only one is true, so let's dig deeper shall we?
The GCTA aims to reward prisoners with shorter time of prison sentences, in exchange for their cooperation, and their good conduct in the prison at most times. The law basically promotes the "High Risk, High Reward" type of situation, but with all this, there are some exceptions to be noted. Criminals who have done heinous crimes to get into jail, are not qualified to go under the GCTA. The law states that inmates would be judged, depending on how extreme the crime was. An example of this is the current issue of rape and murder convict Antonio Sanchez, in which several government officials believe that he should be freed from prison under the GCTA, thus giving him a second chance that they think he deserves, but the question is, does he really deserve it? To answer this, we must describe the pros and cons of the said law.
What are the pros of the GCTA Law? First off, we can easily consider the fact that the law promotes a way in which the inmates could possibly change for the better, both changing their personality as a whole, and completely making up for the crime done in the past, in which it all boils down to them being good inside prison, and in turn, being good outside prison.
Another pro to discuss is that even though second chances are rarely given to people who have done bad in the past, the GCTA promotes this, and proceeds to let out any inmate that seems to qualify for the standards of having good conduct.
With these two things in mind, we can say that people in favor of the GCTA will basically stick to their guns in a main overarching point that serves as the crux of their argument, and it basically just boils down to "Being bad was a long time ago, we're good now." But granted, sometimes, they really haven't changed, and this is where the cons come in.
Now, what are the cons of the law? Well, most of the arguments for the GCTA being flawed in any way also revolve around a big main point, and it's basically "What if they were just acting good to get out of prison?" Which we can see, they have a point there, the law's execution, as many believe, is inherently flawed up to the point of it being untrustworthy of choosing inmates who are worthy of being released, but why is this so?
Point number one, just because they were good inside prison, doesn't neccessarily mean they will be good outside of prison, which has a point, sometimes, inmates could even probably try to trick people into thinking they have changed, but in reality, still has bad intentions.
Point number two, the weight of the crime, cannot be equally matched with the reward to be obtained, which is freedom from prison. With this, we have to exclude small acts of delinquency such a littering, loitering, and even thievery of miniscule items, and instead, talk about intolerable, but still qualified crimes under the GCTA. One example is robbery, just being good in prison does not make us want to give a literal robber, a second chance. So in conclusion, the law certainly has it's pros, and it's cons, all that's missing are some patches for the massive hole brought about by flawed execution, in by all accounts, can be fixed with a few stricter or rather tighter standards for the law. After all, what is punishment, if all you're doing is Ignoring the time, while doing the crime.
by Yubert Ivan Comia
