The Miss Philippine Collegian contests of the '20's eventually gave way to times that were perhaps as amusing but certainly less festive.

It was in 1936, for instance that Teodoro Agoncillo's review of Ricardo Pascual's book on Rizal's retraction inflamed the UP Catholic community led by Father E.J. McCarthy. This led College of Law Dean Jose Espiritu to reprimand the Collegian editor in chief Fred Ruiz Castro for negligence in allowing such an article to be published. In the same issue, an editorial questioning two members of the Board of Regents was suppressed. Meanwhile, another one written in response to the Philippine Commonwealth's hurling of invectives against the editor in chief and the University administration was given the same treatment.

Father McCarthy threatened to excommunicate anyone (including 7 UP Professors), who didn't agree with his stand regarding the Agoncillo article. The November 15, 1937 editorial written in response to Father McCarthy's outburst was given the blue-pencil treatment, leaving the editorial page blank except for the following statement: "This editorial has been censored."



The War Years

With Renato Constantino (1939-40) and Angel Baking (1940-41) as editors in chief, articles on nationalism, communism, and the Huk movement proliferated in the Collegian's pages. In its January 16, 1940 issue, the Collegian advocated the use of Tagalog. Coming out with an editorial stating that "given in Tagalog the same amount of training and encouragement that is being given to us in English, we can produce a literature and gain a reputation entirely our own," the Collegian recanted the pro-English stand that had once led to its conception.

The Collegian stopped publication from 1944-1946 due to the war in the Pacific.