Censoring Documentaries

TV current affairs programs under the glare of the MTRCB
Censoring Documentaries
By Nathan Lee

Ten years ago, censorship was a problem that bedeviled films. Today, censorship is still a problem and its exercise has come to include television documentaries.

In the past few months, four current affairs programs have come under the withering glare of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

These are ABC-5’s Frontlines, GMA’s i-Witness and Reporter’s Notebook, and most recently, ABS-CBN’s The Correspondents.  Television journalists are puzzled.

“We didn’t have any problem with them (MTRCB) in the past,” says Anna Rodriguez, head of ABS-CBN’s public affairs unit, and a former producer of Probe and i-Witness. “Recently, bigla silang naging istrikto.”

Ed Lingao, ABC-5’s news manager and former producer of ABS-CBN’s The Correspondents, agrees. “We were not even required then to submit stories for preview or even after airing,” he says.

But last month, the MTRCB previewed the pilot episode of Frontlines and gave it an “X” rating. The MTRCB said the documentary featured the rebel New People’s Army. For the review board, the episode could encourage young people to join the rebels since it showed young rebels who used laptops and cameras to produce a rebel newscast.

“Apparently, they (MTRCB) thought that this made revolution look fun for young people,” says Lingao, the program’s host.

More than making  revolu-tion look hip, the board said the documentary tended to “under-mine the confidence of the public in government.” It recommended the removal of the segments that had to do with the communist group.

“That would have meant cutting 75 percent of the episode,” Lingao exclaims.

Frontline’s producer, Edward Navarrete, protested and rushed to MTRCB within the day of the airing to fight for the episode.

“Fortunately, Navarette proved very persuasive and convinced the board that the episode was fair and balanced,” Lingao says, noting that the episode included an interview with Presidential Chief of Staff Mike Defensor.

Nothing new
Censorship is nothing new to the country. From the 1950s up to the early 2000s, the government’s censorship boards had been actively making its presence felt in the film industry. Its presence was most keenly felt when films were cut or banned for various reasons such as tending to “incite rebellion,” “glorify criminals,” “satisfy the market for violence and pornography,” and abetting the “traffic and use of drugs.”

Within that time, the Board of Censors had evolved into the Board of Review for Motion Pictures and Television and now, the MTRCB. But one thing remains constant: the board has invoked “contemporary Filipino cultural values” to stifle socially  and politically relevant films such as Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night, Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis, and Jose Javier Reyes’s Live Show.

With the recent waning of “R-18” films—thanks partly to the SM malls’ policy not to show rated “R” movies—the MTRCB lately had little to worry about in so far as movies were concerned. It has now turned its attention to television.

More than two months ago, MTRCB suspended for two episodes the television program i-Witness for airing the docu-mentary, “Lukayo: Hindi Ito Bastos! (Lukayo: This is Not Obscene!).”  The episode featured elderly women as they were dancing and playing with phallic symbols in two weddings in Laguna.

According to the MTRCB, showing male phalluses and simulating the act of masturbation do not fall within the “G” and “PG” classification of the board. While insisting that it was not passing judgment over indigenous culture, the review board said the viewing public must be protected from seeing on television “obscure” rituals such as the lukayo.

The program’s staff, led by head writer and host Howie Severino protested the decision, arguing that the documentary was made to educate viewers about a legitimate Filipino culture.

“The context was very clear,” says Nicanor Tiongson, former MTRCB chair and former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication, as quoted by PJR Reports June 2006. He says the lukayo is “a native culture asserting itself against a Western-imposed culture.
Multi-awarded docu
GMA-7’s Reporter’s Notebook also experienced two instances of direct MTRCB intervention. The first was when the agency gave the segment “Batang Hitman” an R-18 rating. The rating effectively prevented the documentary from being shown in the free screenings at SM Megamall last June as part of GMA-7’s Sine Totoo Anniversary project. The segment was about minors who were hired as killers in Aurora province and the circumstances that bred them.

Despite appeals made by its producers, the documentary was never shown on the silver screen. The segment, however, went on to win the Silver Screen Award from the US International Film and Television Awards. It also received a citation from the Asian Television Awards and was finalist in the New York Festival for Television.

The following month, the board chanced on the plugging of “Puslit na Droga,” which was to be shown on Reporter’s Notebook. It promptly gave the segment an “X” rating for supposedly “abetting the use of drugs.”

“Puslit na Droga” featured the drug trail from Luzon to Puerto Galera in Mindoro, showed images of illegal drugs and drug-related paraphernalia that were allegedly being transported from the Batangas port to the island.

According to executive producer Joy Madrigal, the segment purported to show the laxity of the Batangas port in scrutinizing the contraband.  Still, the producers complied with the MTRCB’s requirement to blur all images of illegal drugs and drug-related paraphernalia. But the board wanted more and insisted on the blurring or remo-val of other parts of the segment.

It was time for the producers to put their feet down.

“At that point, we felt that to do so would affect the effective-ness of the segment as an expository piece as well as a wake-up call on the police organization regarding the modus operandi of the illegal drugs syndicate operating in Puerto Galera,” Madrigal says.

Finally, the board approved the same segment without cuts after being informed by GMA-7 that it would take the case to the Office of the President if the agency insisted on enforcing the changes and sustaining the “X” rating, Madrigal said.

“Puslit na Droga” was finally aired on Aug. 22.

Hard battles
Such victories, however, are hard to come by.  Earlier that month, ABS-CBN’s The Correspondents received a memorandum from the MTRCB dated Aug. 15.

The memo, signed by lawyer Paulino Cases Jr., Ricardo de Leon, and Katherine Vilar, ordered the suspension of the The Correspondents for three episodes.

The suspension stemmed from the documentary program’s episode shown on June 26 entitled, “Ang Pinoy Rasta.”  It was about Filipinos who belong to the Rastafarian religion, a group that included among its rituals the smoking of marijuana.

The documentary showed a young man who was smoking marijuana in the presence of his father who, in turn, admitted that he sometimes smoked the illegal weed with this son.

MTRCB had issued an earlier memorandum, released 10 days after the episode was aired, reprimanding ABS-CBN for showing “that smoking marijuana is an enjoyable activity…(and) sending a strong message that (it’s) okay.”

According to Presidential Decree 1986 which created MTRCB, the agency has the power to prohibit the “exhibition and/or broadcast of television programs…which serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence and pornography, and… which tend to abet the trafficking and use of prohibited drugs.”

Based on the review board’s Implementing Rules and Regulations, materials classified as PG-13 cannot include a “depiction of, or reference to, prohibited drugs or substances and their use.”

On Aug. 22, ABS-CBN stopped the airing of The Correspondents in deference to the MTRCB decision. The MTRCB had also ordered ABS-CBN to issue a public apology but the network refused, insisting it did not commit a violation.

Instead, the network filed a temporary restraining order against the suspension at the Court of Appeals. The network’s legal counsel, Maxim Uy, declined to talk about the case which is pending in court.

Integral part
Rodriguez, the documentary’s executive producer, said they were surprised by the MTRCB decision. After all, the producers had already cut many of the scenes that were deemed objectionable.  She added that ABS-CBN had lately been enforcing stricter self-censorship.

Even in the case of “Pinoy Rasta,” the segment deliberately chose a marijuana user who was not a celebrity. “We could have used any of the celebrities who have admitted using marijuana,” Rodriguez says, but added that the producers were aware that celebrities functioned as role models to many people.

ABS-CBN’s representatives insist that contrary to the claims of MTRCB, the segment did not show the use of marijuana as an enjoyable activity. It did so an integral part of the Rastafarian religion.

Rastafarians consider marijuana or ganja as a “wisdom weed” and believe it to be a means of getting closer to their inner spirit and to God. In large Rastafarian gatherings, a chalice—which is actually a large smoking pipe—is passed around and smoked. The ritual is compared to the  passing around of the communion cup by some Christian denominations.

“If we didn’t include it, we would be doing an injustice to Rastafarian culture,” Rodriguez says.

But Cases, who chairs the board’s adjudication committee, disputes the producers’ reasoning.

“What if I produce a documentary on the heroin use and the addiction thereof, do I have to show a victim injecting heroin into his arm?” Cases argues and asks, “If I make a documentary on the life of a prostitute, do I have to show the prostitute having sex?”

Even though the documentary also mentioned twice that marijuana remains illegal in the country, the MTRCB official remains unmoved.

“You’re telling (viewers that) marijuana is not good, but you’re showing it,” Cases says. “You can say it’s intrinsic but you don’t have to show it,” he insists.

Review, classify—and censor?
“We’re not censors,” Alfred Yuson, a known scriptwriter and MTRCB board member, said in his The Philippine Star column on Aug. 14. “We’re reviewers and classifiers.”

After all, according to its rules, MTRCB’s task is to review and classify television programs using “contemporary Filipino cultural values” as general standards.

Half of MTRCB’s 30 members come from media. It was therefore expected to have a better understanding of how media do their job.

But the recent actions by the board against the four public affairs programs do not show that such an understanding prevails in the MTRCB.

“We felt that instead of basing their decisions on objective application of the fundamentals of journalism, their interpre-tation of MTRCB guidelines (which are vague to begin with) were muddled by personal opinion,” Madrigal says.

Rodriguez adds, “When anybody reviews a piece of work, you have to look at it in its entirety.” One must take into account the context of the elements being shown, such as smoking marijuana in “Pinoy Rasta.”

“I think the MTRCB has a very narrow view of what is acceptable in news and public affairs shows,” Lingao says, referring to the suspension slapped by the MTRCB against i-Witness and Correspondents, and the “X” rating given to Frontlines.

“You don’t protect (your children) by telling them that the world is good, the government is wonderful, and everyone should cut their hair,” Lingao says, adding. “You protect them by telling them that the world can be what we want it to be, so long as people have the right information to make informed decisions.”

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