Once a friend in the student government asked me why it is that the student press had to write about the issues besetting the University, instead of just reporting events or writing pieces that would inspire the students of the University. He told me that in his class, most of those who read this very newspaper felt that the staff had nothing better to do, and could not relate to the ordinary processes of student orgs and groups, could not relate with the internal problems of administration, or with how to make these groups work; that the publication was like a faraway god hurling lightning bolts, unable to relate the struggle of mortals.
As writers, photographers, and artists of a publication that seeks to foist critical thinking among the student populace, we too are very much a part of this community. The publication has staff that have worked with all sectors of the University, from the CSO organizations to the USG to the splinter barkadas that add color to Lasallian student life. These are people with perspectives to offer, but more than perspectives they join a campus media publication not just because they wish to see their work published, or their articles being fawned over by their classmates, or their photographs making the front page, or their infographics being shared by hundreds on Facebook.
We receive no end of lecturing on how our position as members of the press has great responsibility in this University that more or less permits free speech and avenues of expression. We are free to dissent for as long as our opinions are researched and stand true to objective realities. By virtue of law we are free to posit our own suggestions for the improvement of the community of which we are very much a part, only with a burgeoning sense of awareness of what should be, in accordance with what the University stands for. This prescience takes place in the examination of student activities and governance, in the management of our administration and our faculty, in the welfare of our athletes and University athletics, in the day to day transgressions of each student in accordance with what they wish to express.
Rather than being an official voice of the students – this is the University Student Government – we humbly seek to help steer the student body and the University community back to the vision of becoming an academic institution that is a resource for Church and nation that continuously seeks to improve itself and the capacities of all its members. We do not seek to hamper because we have less better things to do; in fact, our fellows yearn for nothing more than to see that the University has achieved what it set out to be. While we are not perfect we strive with our sincerest effort to be balanced while remaining analytical and critical of what transpires in De La Salle.
Since the change in our nomenclature (La Sallites to Lasallians) we have often been mistaken as representative of the entire institution. But our mission is, as Edward Said once said, to be wary of comfort and complacency, and to always be the voice in the wilderness that warns and informs.
With this, we thank you for your understanding, and hope in the future to better serve this community which we all love.
