Bagumbayan Elementary School has finally concluded their Division Schools Press Conference (DSPC) with young and aspiring campus journalists at Navotas City on September 26, 2026, centering its theme on the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in journalism context. 

The theme of this year’s DSPC was “Campus Journalism in the Age of AI: Upholding Truth, Integrity, and Responsible Storytelling”, challenging the students of Navotas to produce journalistic outputs in the continuous rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), while upholding the line of truth in storytelling. 

In the Philippines, 87% of students have been utilizing various AI models such as ChatGPT for seeking sources and 75% use AI to produce academic outputs, or other writing tasks for educational purposes, according to the ASEAN foundation. 

In journalism, according to the Center for News, Technology, and Innovation (CNTI), news content is mainly based and written on factual context, credibility, and transparency. While other newsrooms have experimented using AI tools for news writing, it still clearly lacks human voice within these stories and factual storytelling only written by a technological tool. 

With different categories presented, students are able to challenge themselves in news writing, editorial cartooning, feature writing, other categories along with team categories such as Radio and TV broadcasting, collaborative desktop publishing and Online Publishing that will test the students’ skills in journalism while upholding its theme on AI.

Navotas Mayor John Reynald M. Tiangco attended the event to showcase his support for the students. One of the guest speakers was Leo O. Laparan II, also known as ‘MaestroJourno’ who was the keynote speaker of the school’s event. He began his speech with gratitude for the invitation and later on opened the topic to students about the usage of AI and discussed its implications in the context of journalism.

He urged the students to question the importance of journalism in the rise of AI, “No automatic tool like artificial intelligence or AI can take the place of a human like you. Why? Because journalism is not just about putting information together. It is about understanding people, recognizing what matters, knowing when a question needs to be asked, and understanding context.” 

Winners of the competition have yet to be announced, as participants await the results of the different individual and group categories.