Campus publications from Luzon to Mindanao denounced the University of Mindanao administration for gagging and attacking its campus newspaper, Primum. The administration ordered the removal of several critical articles, took down the newspaper’s Facebook page, and directly controlled its editorial and external affairs in recent weeks.

The administration ordered the deletion of the article “The Allegory of the Runner” on February 25. The piece included former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that being president was “not a woman’s job,” juxtaposed with his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte’s recent announcement.

The newspaper and its campus journalists suffered intense harassment and pressure after the incident. Several of its editors were forced to resign. The repression culminated in the outright deletion of Primum’s Facebook page on March 10.

Campus publications nationwide swiftly expressed solidarity with Primum. According to the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), the broadest alliance of campus publications in the country, the university administration blatantly violates students’ rights to publish and to freely associate.

“Primum’s experience, like that of several publications censored by their administrations across the country, manifests how the environment for student journalists has shrunk,” the CEGP said. Such incidents, it added, occur because the government and private institutions refuse to recognize campus journalists’ vital role in advancing genuine democracy.

“They instead relegate them to mere reporters and observers of institutions rotting away from corruption and impunity,” CEGP continued. The group added that these attacks are further intensified by state-sponsored Red-baiting and “terror-tagging” against campus papers, their alliances, and formations because of their critical reporting.

CEGP urged the University of Mindanao administration to end its intervention and suppression of Primum, which is simply fulfilling its duties to fellow students and the Filipino people. The group also called on other campus publications, journalist organizations, and press freedom advocates to stand with Primum. “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us—and on our future,” the group declared.