Indie filmmakers urge MTRCB: Change rules

[Twin-Skies]

Quoting the news coverage:

MANILA, Philippines—Change the rules because they’re lopsided, if not outdated.

This is what several independent filmmakers—troubled by the handing out of “X” ratings to their short films and documentaries—are asking the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), referring to its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).

Film as satire

The filmmakers expressed the same strong sentiment in separate interviews.

“We’re artists, not journalists obligated to get all sides of the story. We treat our work as art,” RJ Mabili, director of the short film “A Day in the Life of President Arrovo,” told the Inquirer.

Produced by Southern Tagalog Exposure, “Arrovo” is a satire on President Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration. The MTRCB declared the film “too one-sided,” and said it “undermines the faith and confidence of the people,” thus the “X” rating.

According to the Board’s IRR, an “X”-rated film is “not fit for public viewing.”

“We (documentarists) are here to document the stand of people on certain issues,” said EJ Mijares, one of two directors of “Mendiola.” “At the same time, our docu tackles the history of mass protests that happened in Mendiola.”

Co-directed by Janice Atencio, the docu exposes police brutality in 2005 at the time that Arroyo called for the implementation of a controversial executive order called Calculated Preemptive Response. “Mendiola,” said the MTRCB, “has a tendency to incite sedition and rebellion.”

Board member Dick de Leon, head of a committee of three that reviewed the two films, said a portion in “Mendiola” could also be constituted as a violation of Presidential Decree No. 603, (Child and Youth Welfare Code) because it “featured children without the children’s consent.”

I'd go as far to say that we're better off without the MTRCB. State-run cencorship/review boards are always bad news.

[Lord_Leperman]

I have to agree though abolishing the MTRCB will mean greater freedom in film making, but by abolishing it, some other regulatory board should replace it. We could take lessons from the ESRB in America in a sense that it is independent rating body funded by the software industry itself. By this, we have an entertainment media rating body which is not partial to politics as the MTRCB would be. I remember talking to you about this a few days back and those were the points you mentioned.