Calabarzon clinches 9th straight championship at NSPC, extends record win streak

MANILA, Philippines — Calabarzon (Region IV-A) has emerged as this year’s champion at the 2023 National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) at Cagayan de Oro, scoring a historic nine-year winning streak at the annual campus journalism competition.   

Since winning the NSPC in Leyte in 2013, Calabarzon has continued to best other regions for nine consecutive years, staying true to the region’s call for this year's competition to "own the ninth."

Coming in second and third place are Davao (Region XI) and Bicol (Region V), respectively, followed by National Capital Region (fourth) and Caraga (Region XIII) (fifth).

The reigning champion dominated the elementary division of group events, placed second in both elementary and secondary individual contests, and clinched fifth in the secondary group events.

Recent changes 

Only the top regional winner for each medium participated in the individual categories at this year's NSPC, although individual awards in different journalistic categories still remained.

Meanwhile, the top five regional winners per medium joined the school paper category.

For the categories of collaborative desktop publishing and radio script writing and broadcasting, students at the elementary and secondary levels participated. However, only secondary students took part in the group competitions for online publishing and TV script writing and broadcasting.

Mobile journalism, which is expected to be added as a category in the upcoming years, was introduced in a concurrent session attended by ten secondary campus journalists—five in English and five in Filipino—and ten school paper advisers from each region.

The three-day NSPC was held from June 17 to 20 this year and carried the theme "From Campus Journalism to Real-World Journalism: Shaping Minds from Schools to Societies." — Intern, Bless Aubrey Ogerio