(CMFR/IFEX) – The following is a CMFR press release: CENSORSHIP VIOLATES THE RIGHT TO FREE EXPRESSION PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s power to prevent any film in the country from being exhibited derives from the archaic law creating the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). PD 1986, signed into law in 1985, was a Marcos […]
(CMFR/IFEX) – The following is a CMFR press release:
CENSORSHIP VIOLATES THE RIGHT TO FREE EXPRESSION
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s power to prevent any film in the country from being exhibited derives from the archaic law creating the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). PD 1986, signed into law in 1985, was a Marcos decree, the primary purpose of which was to prevent films and television programs with “subversive” themes from being shown to the public. But it also empowers the board to delete scenes from any film on the grounds of immorality, indecency, and even damage “to the prestige of the Republic of the Philippines and its people or its duly constituted authority”.
PD 1986 does provide the board with classificatory powers – in much of the civilized world this is the only regulatory prerogative governments enjoy over films – but it also empowers the board to ban a film outright by giving it an “X” rating. In addition, the President of the Philippines may ban any film passed by the board. This was the power President Arroyo exercised the other day when she banned the film “Live Show”.
Over the last several years, as the contradictions inherent in PD 1986 caused a number of controversies, among them the banning of “The Last Temptation of Christ” and the attempt to ban “Schindler’s List”, media advocacy, artists’ and film makers’ groups have urged its repeal. The repeal of PD 1986 would abolish the MTRCB. In its place, a self-regulatory body composed of individuals from the film industry, civil society, and academia has been proposed.
This proposal deserves serious study towards implementation, film being the only mass medium and art form currently under close government regulation. The body envisioned would limit itself to classifying films and would have no censorship powers. It would protect minors from viewing films they cannot yet appreciate, and enhance the capacity of mature audiences to make free choices as to the films they want to see.
It would also eliminate the present law’s conflict with the 1987 Constitution, and provide substance to the protection of free expression provided for in Article III, Section 4, of that basic document. (“No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances”.) Such a body would at the same time encourage greater responsibility and self-regulation among film producers and filmmakers.
PD 1986’s being currently in force does not prevent its being liberally interpreted, however. The Siguion-Reyna Board – and Nicanor Tiongson’s would probably have been equally liberal if given the chance – saw its role as basically classificatory. It did prevent demonstrably unworthy films from being shown, but it also allowed films with socially-redeeming value to be shown to mature audiences. Nevertheless, the ultimate solution is in changing the law for a better one.
In the current controversy, two things are clear. First, the ban on a film hastily but unjustly condemned as pornographic by Cardinal Sin and certain church groups is contrary to the protection of free expression guaranteed by the 1987 Constitution. Second, the Arroyo government, by overruling on the strength of church objections an earlier decision by the MTRCB to allow the showing of the film to audiences 18 years old and above, has established a precedent of church intervention in state matters. President Arroyo censored a film — and censored it on the say-so of an institution from which the state is supposed to be separate. The principle of the separation of church and state does not prevent church people from expressing their views on matters of state. But it does prevent them from making state policy.
Censorship and church intervention in state matters are both contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and must be opposed by everyone with a stake in the mass media, including film. This means everyone — from artists to media practitioners, from academics to the ordinary moviegoer, whatever his calling. But we also urge the Arroyo government to seriously rethink what could eventually be a state policy on film – and to work for the passage of a law on film worthy of a free people. As the child and beneficiary of People Power II – a mass action by millions of people disgusted with incompetence and corruption, in the success of which free expression was a critical factor – the Arroyo government should be the last to suppress that basic right.
Melinda Quintos de Jesus
Luis V. Teodoro
Fulgencio Factoran Jr
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility
