When I was invited to write about my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of The LaSallian, specifically about events we covered that “shaped not only Philippine and Lasallian history, but the publication’s history as well,” I was trepidated. I am not sure that I had a significant impact on such lofty matters. I was a young adult—largely dependent on my parents, very bookish, full of big ideas I learned in the classroom, with some writing skills, and then eventually a platform, by way of a monthly opinion column. I ransacked my house for old issues of the paper, which I couldn’t find anymore; I suspect they may have been casualties of the Ondoy flood back in 2009. I had to rely on memory to reconstruct the pivotal events we had written about. This was no easy feat, as our country had seen at least five presidents since I first joined the staff of the Menagerie (i.e. the features section of TLS).
To a certain extent, we covered issues that have proved to be perennial: deaths from fraternity hazing, sexual harassment in our institutions, flawed school policies such as overly strict dress codes or vague provisions about what constituted “public displays of physical intimacy.” In one of my columns, I critiqued the abuse of the “honor system” that was being implemented under former Brother President Rolando Dizon. Faculty were encouraged to leave students un-proctored as they took their exams, to give them the opportunity to exhibit, well, honor. As a social experiment, it was a spectacular failure in at least two of my classes, where I witnessed rampant cheating the moment the teacher left. I was so dismayed and wrote about it in a piece entitled “Dishonor System?” My classmates, who recognized themselves in the incidents I described, promptly started bullying me. I was not red-tagged or trolled online (this was the pre-social media era), but those incidents stand out as my experience of journalistic persecution. In any case, those former classmates are likely lawyers now, as I encountered them in the Legal Management program.
If there was one important article I had written, it was the first I ever penned for the paper, probably published in the July 1996 issue. It addressed the Philippine government’s conflict with the rebels in what was then the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (now Bangsamoro). Long marginalized since the American colonial era, Moro Muslims—who once comprised the majority of the indigenous inhabitants of Mindanao—resisted pacification by the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese, waging an intermittent insurgency with the Philippine government. At the time that I was writing about the conflict, there was a tenuous peace as former President Fidel V. Ramos’s government worked with a transitional administrative structure called the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). However, even then, there was a lot of tension, and sure enough, the Moro conflict would develop into an “all-out war” under former President Joseph Estrada, eventually petering out into a problem of banditry and kidnapping by such groups as the infamous Abu Sayyaf. Around this time, bombing incidents occurred in the National Capital Region. The one that was particularly indelible for me was the train explosion in the LRT Line 1, which I often rode to school. A vestige of the terror of those days endures in the ineffectual bag and car searches that take place whenever you enter a mall or parking building in the Philippines. A measure of peace prevails in Mindanao now, which was briefly interrupted in 2017 when ISIS-affiliated militants attacked Marawi City.
To write the article about SPCPD, I had to do extensive research, at a time when the Internet was extant but largely rudimentary. I also interviewed a couple of my professors, a political scientist and an ethnologist. When the article was published, however, my byline and that of my co-writer were accidentally omitted, which was noted in an erratum that appeared in the succeeding issue. I can’t recall now how I felt about that, though my editors at the time were very abashed. Our piece was eventually cited as Best Feature Article at the first annual awards ceremony that TLS ever held, dubbed the “Silver Quill Awards” (initiated during the tenure of co-EICs Angelica Fortich and Luis Laparan). I like to think the name was inspired by the title of an article I had written that year, “A Silver Quill,” which was a retrospective of José Rizal’s works and achievements. For a poem he had written when he was 18 years old, he received an award from the Manila Lyceum of Art and Literature, which consisted of a feather-shaped silver pen.
I write this during Israel’s looming ground invasion of Gaza, in retaliation for the Hamas attacks in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400. As of this writing, The Guardian reports that 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. By comparison, during Estrada’s all-out war against Moro Muslims, some 1,200 were killed in a period of three and a half months. The total death toll since the beginning of the conflict in 1968, during the Marcos era, is estimated at 100,000. These are mind-boggling figures. When I was a student journalist, the terror was palpable, for all that the DLSU campus mostly felt like a sheltered enclave. Now, because of social media, we are bombarded with real-time accounts of war’s atrocities. I no longer write pieces that attempt to contextualize internecine conflicts in the country, but as a philosophy professor at my alma mater, I discuss the problem of war and dehumanization in my ethics classes. What lessons can we learn about the fragility of peaceful coexistence, the value of trust and compromise, the significance of the ideological lenses through which we understand events? I try to impress upon my students the importance of keeping up with current issues, no matter how depressing or insoluble they may appear to be.
In this way, the campus newspaper has never been so relevant. I imagine my fellow Lasallians reading about my take on Muslim Mindanao more than two decades ago. I like to think they did not turn the page for lighter pieces to entertain them or distract them from the usual stress of college life—although TLS offered these too. (In fact, I even had a major quarrel with a fellow editor in that I wanted to preserve the articles he called “fluff,” while he wanted to devote space solely to heavy political topics.) TLS is the faithful amanuensis of Lasallian cultural and social life, especially as it relates to the larger events that are happening in the country and even the world. Only student writers, artists, and photographers can tell this story in a way that uniquely speaks to their peers. I’m no longer a young adult, and I’ve been a witness to Lasallian and Filipino life for quite a long time now, though admittedly to a very privileged slice of it. I can say that the work of a journalist is key to expanding the mind of citizens. TLS’s audience is ever the new generation of the enlightened Filipino elite, often disillusioned by the actions of their elders, enticed to emigrate, in danger of cooptation by capitalism. They are often outvoted in national elections or trolled online for their earnest views. But for all that the Philippines ranks among the deadliest countries for journalists—hitting a record number of 34 journalists killed during the 2009 Maguindanao massacre—to say nothing of the widespread practice of “red-tagging”—our young people, our progressive vanguard, is worth writing for. I say cheers to TLS, and my fellow student journalists past and present, for your words, your art, and your photos!
Postscript: The title of this piece is the name of my TLS opinion column, which ran from 1998 to 2000. No, it was not a reference to a vampire romance. I wanted to convey a sense of clarity, albeit always temporary, by harking to the end of those temporal slices that still divide their allegiance between day or night, one side or the other. For to write is to take a stand.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This article is an unedited submission from The LaSallian‘s former editor in chief, offering a glimpse into the candid thoughts, insights, and perspectives of an individual who once steered the publication through the currents of time.
Noelle Leslie dela Cruz served as The LaSallian‘s editor in chief during Academic Year 1999-2000, having previously served as the Menagerie editor the year before. This period marked a pivotal transition into the new millennium. In 2000, the first bill aimed at addressing gender-based discrimination was introduced in Congress, while the preceding year saw the initial attempt to legalize abortion.
Meanwhile, then-President Joseph Estrada faced a dramatic decline in popularity due to mounting corruption allegations, rising insurgency threats, challenges to press freedom, and economic woes. The nation also grappled with a significant drug abuse issue, with DLSU rumored to be among the affected institutions.
Within DLSU, this period saw the commencement of the modernization of ID cards with barcodes, initiating the automation of ID scanning upon entry. The honor system also emerged as a contentious issue. The so-called “system” had no concrete guidelines, and The LaSallian faithfully reported the community’s pulse, including its eventual suspension. Simultaneously, discussions around student empowerment gained momentum, coinciding with revisions to the student handbook, which included temporary relaxation of rules regarding food consumption on campus, public displays of intimacy, and attire restrictions.
Dela Cruz is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy, an award-winning poet, and lead author of the books Philosophy of the Human Person: Giving Meaning to Life (Oxford University Press) and Feminista: Gender, Race, and Class in the Philippines (Anvil Press). She also publishes the bi-monthly online newsletter, Beyond the Ghetto, which aims to mainstream the works of women philosophers. Her research and teaching areas include existential phenomenology, philosophy of literature, and feminist philosophy.
