Karapatan supports the electoral agenda presented by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) to candidates running for public office, noting the prominence of calls to address the issue of campus press freedom violations which impinge on the constitutionally guaranteed right of freedom of expression.
The 2025 Campus Press Electoral Agenda, which was signed by more than a hundred student publications nationwide, also notably calls for the release of Frenchie Mae Cumpio, an Eastern Visayas-based community journalist detained since February 2020 on trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives and financing terrorism.
Cumpio’s unjust arrest and detention, the continuing curtailment of campus press freedom and media repression in general are crucial human rights issues rightfully taken up by the youth as part of their commitment to advance the rights and welfare of their sector and the people as a whole.
Karapatan lauds the CEGP in taking this initiative to project these and other related human rights issues as part of the national discourse in the mid-term elections and in the parliamentary arena.