Ian Flora

Ian Ocampo Flora (born March 12, 1983, also known as Ian Flora) is a Pampanga based journalist, professor at the Holy Angel University, and photojournalist. Flora has been actively writing for many local newspapers but he is most popular as a provincial journalist of Sun.Star Pampanga.

History

Ian Ocampo Flora was born to parents Lorenza Sampang Ocampo of Sta. Rita town and Orlando Santos Flora of Guagua. He is the eldest of three siblings namely Lhenie Flora and Marichris Flora. He took up his AB Mass Communication Arts course at Holy Angel University in the year 2000. He was conferred the honor as Most Outstanding Communication Arts Student by the College of Arts and Sciences when he graduated in 2004.

College years

Flora was a student journalist and wrote news articles for The Nexus, the official Student Publication of the College of Arts and Sciences of Holy Angel University (HAU) when he was still a freshman in 2000. He then led the mass resignation of fellow student journalists of the school paper during the first semester of the same year after the senior editorial board members faced a celebrated financial scandal regarding missing funds. The Office of Student Affairs (OSA) led by Dean Francisco Adviento started a massive investigation that led to the closing of The Nexus from second semester of SY 2000-2001 and first semester of SY 2001-2002.

The OSA set up an interim newspaper named The Pylon to fill up the vacuum left by the defunct editorial board of the Nexus.

During the second semester of SY 2001-2002 he was declared as Editor in chief after he took the Editorial Board exams for the revival of Nexus. Members of Pylon also took the exams and most of them landed editorial positions. Flora had to start the operations of the school paper from scratch and brave the indifference of former Pylon editors who did not want to place themselves under the authority of a younger editor in chief.

Flora, in a political move, started cleaning the editorial board of insubordinate editors by issuing termination letters and appointing key positions to Nexus allies who joined him in an earlier mass resignation.

Flora and the whole editorial had to relinquish their posts during 2nd Semester of SY 2001-2002. However, OSA extended their term for another semester since the HAU rules dictated that a papers' editorial board must have a full year (equivalent to two semesters) of duty.

The move, however, made the change in editorial board, somewhat irregular since most publications in the school change their editorial boards and conduct editorial exams during the last semester of the school year. As for The Nexus, the change in editorial positions was set on the first semester.

To PReVENT this, Flora, along with Editors Jelly Lampa, Flordelyn Rapinan and Izah Santos and a couple of staffers lobbied for another extension of term to "regularize" the school calendar of The Nexus.

Through constant lobbying, amid opposition from remaining Pylon members, Flora got Adviento's approval. Flora and his editorial board are the only student journalists of HAU to stay in office for one and a half year.