[1] Some campaigned against the dictatorship through legal means while others fought to overthrow it through armed rebellion, joining the Communist Party of the Philippines.
[5] In 1935, the Collegian published Teodoro Agoncillo's review of Ricardo Pascual's book Dr. Jose Rizal beyond the Grave, despite threats of excommunication from the Catholic Church.
And in 1951, editor in chief (EIC) Elmer Ordoñez exposed the government's intervention in UP affairs, particularly in the aftermath of UP President Bienvenido Gonzalez's resignation.
Despite the widespread conservatism, which equated nationalist sentiments with "communist threats", the Collegian continued publishing articles from socialism to the Hukbalahap movement.
Subsequently, several Collegian staff, including Enrique Voltaire Garcia,[9] Antonio Tagamolila,[10] and Jacinto Peña[11] faced imprisonment and death.
The Rebel Collegian issues brought to the fore the students' demand for lower tuition and dorm rates, among others, while "taking up the oppressed masses cause in exposing the corruption, servility, and violence of our semi-colonial and semi-feudal society".
Meanwhile, the regular Collegian of then EIC Oscar Yabes served as a diversionary propaganda tool with its emphasis on counter-revolutionary literary pieces, with nary a critique of the atrocities under the US-Marcos regime.
In the 1989 editorial "EDSA and UP—Three Years After", EIC Ruben Carranza, Jr. noted that "social injustice and foreign domination" remained entrenched in Philippine society.
For instance, the Rebel Collegian came into existence in 1996 after the battle between Voltaire Veneracion and Richard Gappi, rivals for the EIC post that year.
On the one hand, Veneracion and the editor before him, Ibarra Gutierrez, espoused social democratic politics, Gappi and most of his colleagues from former EIC Michael John Ac-Ac's staff embraced national democracy.
Now, the publication continues to publish content and news updates on its Facebook, Instagram, and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, pages, as well as its official website, phkule.org.