The Light Publication

𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊| 𝐔𝐒𝐞𝐏 𝐆𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐇𝐲𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐝: 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲

The University of Southeastern Philippines Tagum Unit (USeP) has officially shifted to a flexible work and learning arrangement after its Office of the President released Memorandum Circular No. 2026-02, which follows national government energy conservation requirements.

The university operations, following the memorandum issued, will use two fundamental changes to university operations.

The new policy requires staff to work at university premises from Monday to Thursday, while Friday office hours will only permit on-site service to certain income-generating units which serve external clients.

Moreover, the university has also adopted a hybrid instructional delivery scheme where students will attend face-to-face classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, while they will participate in online synchronous learning on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Instructors will have the option to conduct their classes through either synchronous or asynchronous sessions, which they will manage via the USeP Virtual Environment (UVE) platform on Fridays.

Stakeholders will also now perform their transactions through the university’s online systems, which include the Student Records Request System (SRRS) and the Online Payment Portal.

Graduate school programs will likewise implement a hybrid arrangement, with on-site classes scheduled every second Saturday of the month.

In addition, students who have been assigned to complete off-campus work through internships and on-the-job training will adhere to the work timings which their dedicated host institutions establish.

USeP announced that all university scheduled activities which occurred between March 9 and March 14, 2026, would continue as planned despite the memorandum prohibition of university activities.

The university implements this energy conservation initiative as part of national efforts to handle increasing electricity consumption.

USeP operational activities will follow government operational guidelines through Memorandum Circular No. 2026-02, which enables the continuation of educational services and vital services.

For now, the university will issue further announcements, which will occur as the institution observes ongoing developments through active monitoring.

| Raff Marilao

𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 | 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝟕𝟎𝟕𝟗?

Republic Act No. 7079, also known as the Campus Journalism Act of 1991, is a law aimed at safeguarding and promoting press freedom within educational institutions. It establishes a legal basis for creating student publications and requires the government to encourage the growth and support of campus journalism. Nevertheless, recent instances of censorship and intentional suppression of a student publication bring this issue into question.

While the Act was designed to uphold the freedom of the press at the campus level, these recurring issues of censorship and suppression raise the question: To what extent does the law truly protect student journalists when its provisions are weak in defending a publication’s freedom of the press against the influence of higher-ups?

| Naomi Albuna
Pubmat by Jimuel Taypin

𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐃!

Na-blessed ba ang tanan sa knowledge ni Linda Walker na naka-score ng 719 points sa mock exam? Or ni Rabiya Mateo na naka-score og 741 sa NMAT?

Exam enod! How was the Midterm Exam, ka-Yano? Nakakuha man og 719 points or wala, ang importante you did your best. Those sleepless nights, thick reviewers, flashcards, etc. kay wala na-put into vain. You already did your part, and that is enough. Just remember: kung kaya nila, aw, sanaol sila. Congratulations, ka-Yano!

Naomi Albuna
Pubmat by Dianne Rochelle Montojo

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 | 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐦’𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞

Delivering truth that matters has always been the goal of journalists. School publications serve as platforms for champions of truth to share timely information, not just for the benefit of those within the school community, but for the wider community and the nation as a whole. The role of student publications extends beyond the classroom; our responsibility encompasses not only what happens within our institution but also the broader national context.

The press—the people, have the right to express their ideas and opinions freely. In a democratic society, journalists act as watchdogs, addressing grievances caused by those meant to serve the public.

We, The Light Publication, stand united with Primum, the official student publication of the University of Mindanao. The recent acts of oppression and demands for censorship are direct attacks on both truth and freedom. We have always admired Primum's boldness and courage in presenting the realities of our time. We fully support the journalists of Primum today and those who have come before them.

Oppression of press freedom is a suppression of truth. School publications were created to serve the public, not the interests of the powerful. They exist to address challenges. We exist with the purpose of demanding transparency and informing the citizens of this country.

It is truly alarming how easy it is to silence these voices of truth. Despite laws designed to protect press freedom, these measures are often insufficient to prevent censorship and threats.

Student publications exist not to serve the personal interests of a few, but for the benefit of the many. We are here to speak the truth and fight for freedom.

For truthful, impactful, and responsible journalism.

𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 | 𝐔𝐒𝐞𝐏 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐦 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐅 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

The University of Southeastern Philippines, Tagum–Mabini Campus, Tagum Unit bagged multiple awards in different competitions during the Regional Culture and Arts Festival (RCAF) 2026, held at Davao del Norte State College on March 6-8, 2026.

The event was attended by six State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) across Region 11, including USeP, which participated in unfolding their ability towards culture and arts. In line with this competition, the USePians have shown exemplary skill, resulting in obtaining multiple awards.

Ronian V. Maglasang, a BECEd student and Head Photojournalist for the Light Publication, won a gold medal in the photography competition, earning him a place as a national qualifier.

In addition, Archievard B. Claro (BSEd-Mathematics) and Norvelyn L. Cagang (BEEd) took 2nd place in the Contemporary Duo, Candyd Myle A. Lozarito obtained the 3rd Place in Poster Making, Ferlyn F. Dominguez secured 3rd Place in Pop Solo, and Faith R. Bayola (BSEd-English) earned 3rd Place in the Persuasive Oratory.

Moreover, Higgen John L. Polpol and Krizza M. Epanto clinch the 3rd Place in Pandalawahang Pag-arte, Althea Mae A. Batingal secured 3rd Place in the Dramatic Monologue, Shielo D. Panibon and Jay Llyod M. Labrador obtained 4th Place in Vocal Duet, Shield Shammah E. Sabio earned 5th Place in the Song Writing, and Alexis A. Tuazon got the 5th Place in Deklamasyon.

The USeP community celebrates this commendable achievement, highlighting that students have reached a remarkable milestone.

Their victory serves as an inspiration to fellow USePians, demonstrating that students can excel creatively and showcase their talents across various fields.

| Nathalie Villarba
Photos by Ronian Maglasang

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝟐𝟖𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐫𝐚𝐰 𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐦!

Today, we celebrate the 28th anniversary of Tagum City, the City of Harmony. This is the day we Tagumeños honor our history, culture, and people.

Let’s embrace another year of shared commitment, moving forward with purpose toward our next big successes.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝

Anyone can express admiration respectfully without reducing the person to a mere object of desire. With the remarks coming from a so-called 'honorable' official, this is simply a sign of disrespect towards not just the women of today but also an insult to all the women before us.

An official is supposed to uphold respect, inclusivity, and equality – not use 'imagination' as an excuse to disregard boundaries and treat women without dignity

'Wag po tayong dugyot.

Happy National Women's Month.

| Frail Jamaica Gabales
Pubmat by Jorge Visperas

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 | 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬, 𝐈𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬
Let’s be blunt with no sugar coating: tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of EDSA, and the country will treat it like a regular day. Unchanged alarms. Repeated uniforms. Ritualized timekeeping. As if February 1986 was just another chapter to underline and move past. As though February 1986 was merely a footnote to highlight and then dismiss.

EDSA—Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a strip of asphalt turned into a battlefield. Where hope and terror rubbed elbows, and the country held its breath as the world might finally break. For four days, people poured onto it, millions of voices, arms linked, refusing to move, refusing to bow. They faced tanks. They faced guns. And in that standoff, a dictatorship that had ruled unchecked for twenty years began to unravel. Ordinary citizens, not soldiers, forced the grip of power to loosen. Democracy wasn’t handed back. It was wrested from those who thought it would never return.

And yet here we are.

Let’s be honest. The indifference stings.

Because the people who stood on that highway did not show up for a photo opportunity. They faced armored vehicles with nothing but rosaries, transistor radios, linked arms, and a kind of courage that most comfortable generations only theorize about. They knew what the regime was capable of. They had seen it. Some had already lost brothers, sisters, fathers. Still, they stood there anyway. Not because it was safe. Because it was necessary.

Under Martial Law, more than 3,000 were documented killed. Over 70,000 were tortured. At least 30,000 were detained without due process. These were not anonymous statistics drifting in a government archive. They were Filipino sons dragged from their homes. Filipino daughters brutalized in silence. Parents who waited at windows that would never again frame the face they were hoping to see. The scars belong to specific families—families who still carry the weight of unfinished conversations and unmarked graves.

Now, contrast that with the present.

Classes will proceed. Blue ink marks the attendance. Teachers bark, “Page 143. Now.” Students scribble dates they’ll forget before lunch. Offices hum under flickering lights, printers hacking out reports that vanish into the void. Routine swallows everything—even history. The nation will function efficiently. Smoothly. Quietly.

Too quietly.

Maybe it’s just unsettling to watch history flattened into routine. Reduced to a line item on a school calendar. A “special working holiday” is observed only if an employer or a department head, or an institutional policy, decides it can spare the hours. Commemoration by permission. Memory, conditional.

A 2023 survey by Social Weather Stations reported that only 32% of Filipinos aged 18–24 say they know the key events of EDSA. Thirty-two percent. That is not some harmless generational gap. That is erosion. A slow, grinding away of collective memory shaped by systems that reward output over reflection. Routine doesn’t just fill schedules. It dulls memory. It softens outrage. It trains people to move on before they have fully understood what happened.

Think about it.

History is not ink on paper. It is breath held in fear. It is the metallic smell of tanks idling under the sun. It is the static of a radio pressed close to the ear because that was the only way to know if democracy would survive the night. When that becomes a multiple-choice question, something vital is lost.

People like to talk about EDSA as if it were grand and orderly. It wasn’t. It was loud. Chaotic. Frightening. Comfort? Forget it. They weren’t here for ease. Just one more day under that rotten regime was too much. So, they stood. They disrupted. Risked everything. Messy. Loud. Terrifying. But the only way forward.

But society prefers predictability now. Efficiency. Continuity. The comfort of a filled planner. Call it progress if you want. It also looks a lot like moral laziness. Convenience over conviction. Productivity over principle.

Tomorrow, students will sit in plastic chairs. Workers will tap their IDs against scanners. A speech might be delivered carefully phrased, neatly timed, about democracy and unity. Applause. Then dismissal. Back to business.

And that’s the problem.

A nation that never stops to feel the weight of its freedom will start to think it’s nothing. Fragile. Weightless. It fell from the sky instead of being ripped from the hands of a tyrant. And when liberty feels cheap, it becomes easy to trade.

That is the lie of routine: that everything is fine because everything is functioning. But history shows that societies can function while injustice thrives beneath the surface. They can run on time while silencing dissent. They can print reports while burying the truth.

As George Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

So perhaps what is required is not a grand ceremony, not another rehearsed declaration—but a deliberate interruption. A refusal to let the day pass unexamined. A moment of discomfort. A moment of memory.

Pause. Sit with it. Say the words plainly.

Never again. Never forget.

Art by Cedrawer

𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀 𝐎 𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐀?

Ang opisyal na paggunita ng EDSA People Power Revolution ay nagsimula sa Proklamasyon Blg. 59 na nilagdaan ni Pangulong Corazon Aquino noong Pebrero 11, 1987, kung saan idineklara niya ang Pebrero 25 bilang isang espesyal na pampublikong holiday upang bigyang-pugay ang mapayapang pag-aalsang nagbalik ng demokrasya sa Pilipinas mula sa Batas Militar. Ngunit, may pagbabago sa pamamaraan ng paggunita nito nang idineklara ng kasalukuyang pangulo ng Pilipinas na si Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., ang anak ng yumaong diktador na si Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr., ang EDSA commemoration bilang isang “special working holiday.”

Kung noon ay ipinagpapaliban ang trabaho at klase tuwing Pebrero 25 bilang pagbabalik-tanaw sa EDSA People Power Revolution, ngayon ay unti-unting nagbabago ang nakasanayan ng mga Pilipino mula sa pagpapalit ng petsa ng pagdiriwang hanggang sa patuloy na operasyon ng mga tanggapan at paaralan sa araw na ito. Noon, pinagtibay ng mga nakaraang administrasyon ang kahalagahan ng EDSA sa pambansang kamalayan. Gaya na lamang ni dating Pangulong Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo na nilagdaan ni ang Proklamasyon Blg. 1224 noong Enero 30, 2007, bilang pagtakda sa Pebrero 22 hanggang Pebrero 25 bilang "EDSA People Power Commemoration Week" na sinundan ni dating Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte, na noong 2018 ay idineklarang holiday pa rin ang Pebrero 25, anuman ang araw kung kailan ito tumapat.

Simula ng maluklok bilang pangulo si Bongbong Marcos noong Hunyo 30, 2022, nagbago ang pamamaraan ng paggunita sa iilang mga pambansang pagdiriwang. Isa sa mga halimbawa nito ay ang Araw ni Ninoy Aquino, na orihinal na ipinagdiriwang tuwing ika-21 ng Agosto. Noong nakaraang taon, ito ay inilipat sa ika-23 ng Agosto. Ayon naman sa Proklamasyon Blg. 368 na nilagdaan noong Oktubre 11, 2023, hindi kabilang ang EDSA sa listahan ng mga regular na holiday at mga espesyal na non-working day sa taong 2024 dahil ito ay nakatakda naman sa isang Linggo.

Habang ang pagpapalit ng mga petsa ay isang magaling na hakbang para sa gobyerno, mga empleyado, turismo, at iba pang mga sektor, ang katotohanan ng kaganapan ay bahagyang natatabunan. Ang kabuluhan ng kasaysayan ay nalilihis mula sa pag-alala patungo sa pakikinabang.

Ngunit sino nga ba ang nakikinabang dito? Tunay bang para sa mga manggagawa at sambayanang Pilipino? O para unti-unting burahin ang mga mantsa ng karumal-dumal na nakaraang gawa ng dumaang diktadurya?

Sa kabila ng pagbabagong ipinalaganap sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang administrasyon, may ilang unibersidad ang hindi sumunod sa kautusang ito at mas piniling pahalagahan ang diwa ng naturang rebolusyon. Kabilang na rito ang De La Salle University at University of Santo Tomas sa mga institusyong nagpaliban sa mga pasok upang makiisa sa pagpupugay sa EDSA.

Nakasaad naman sa University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) Student Handbook na ang pangulo ng unibersidad ay may kapangyarihang mag-suspendi ng klase. Bagamat idineklara ng USeP ang pag-alala sa makasaysayang araw na ito, alinsunod naman sa Proklamasyon Blg. 727, serye ng 2024 na inilabas ng Malacañang, ito ay opisyal nang isang "special working day." Bagaman walang kinikilingang panig ang pamantasan, ang naturang memorandum ay nagbubunsod ng tanong tungkol sa pagpapahalaga sa demokrasya at ang patuloy na pagkilala sa kasaysayan ng bansa.

Sa paglihis ng katuturan ng paggunita sa araw ng EDSA, hindi napamarisan ang agilang simbolo ng yaong Pamantasan—agilang may taglay na husay, lakas, tapang, at kalayaan. Sa halip, tila naging isang tutang nakaabang sa mando ng sinumang amo—na sa kontekstong ito ay ang nagdaang diktador at ang kasalukuyang pangulo.

Agila pa rin ba tayong may matayog na paglipad na sumasalamin sa diwa ng kalayaan o isa na lamang ba tayong asong sunud-sunuran, muling pumapailalim sa anino ng diktadura?

Pakatandaan: Ang maliit na pagbabago ay maaari pa ring magdulot ng malaking epekto. Ang pag-alala sa kasaysayan ay mahalaga sapagkat ito ang gagabay sa mga hakbang sa kasalukuyan upang hindi na maulit sa hinaharap ang mga kamalian ng nakaraan. Kasaysayan ay huwag kaligtaan, pagkat ang paglimot ay kakampi ng mga manlulupig, at panganib sa demokrasya.

Sinulat ni Maria Magiliw
Ginuhit ni Tinik

04/02/2026 | 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘! 𝐖𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓

Today, we commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution, the event that left a permanent mark on Philippine History.

𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍. 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓

Pubmat by Karma13