UST orders TomasinoWeb to take down photo ‘ridiculing’ students

MANILA, Philippines – TomasinoWeb, the digital student media organization of the University of Santo Tomas (UST), temporarily stopped social media operations after the resignation of its publication adviser on Monday, February 19.

This comes after the university’s Office for Student Affairs (OSA) ordered the organization to delete a photo of students from the College of Information and Computing Sciences (CICS) entering a convenience store inside the campus. OSA said the image caused “public ridicule.”

The picture was a part of TomasinoWeb’s social media post on Thursday, February 15, which featured students from different colleges wearing their “Type B” uniforms, which are typically worn from Ash Wednesday until the end of the second semester.

According to a report by The Varsitarian, there were jokes that compared the Type B uniform of the CICS students to those of convenience store employees.

UST journalism instructor Leo Laparan II, who is also a desk editor at The Philippine Star, said in his resignation letter that “the recent turn of events has rendered my position in the student organization immaterial and insignificant moving forward.”

“I felt like I was trampled upon with what happened. Natapakan yung pagka-journalist ko sa nangyari because that is a clear illustration of censorship,” he told reporters in an interview.

Laparan will continue teaching journalism classes at the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters.

Fr. Louie Coronel, UST’s secretary-general, told Rappler in an email on Tuesday, February 20, that “collaborative efforts are being undertaken to resolve the matter,” and that they “value the inputs shared on various platforms” as these help them deliberate on the matter.

According to the Campus Journalism Act of 1991, having an adviser is only optional for student publications at the tertiary level. 

But technically, TomasinoWeb is not a student publication. Under UST guidelines, they are classified as a student organization.

TomasinoWeb, like other student organizations, follows guidelines set by the OSA. Student publications, on the other hand, report to the Office of the Secretary-General.

According to rules laid out by the OSA, when the adviser