Perhaps it was providential that the second committee that lifted the previous X rating on Alipato at Muog viewed the documentary from a more sympathetic perspective, one that respected the maturity of the audience and reiterated the protection accorded by the Constitution to freedom of expression.
But there is apparently a clash of perspectives within the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).
If one were to ask the MTRCB chair, the ban imposed by the first committee should stay. She made this statement during a Senate budget hearing held before the second review. In the same venue, and in the presence of senators, the MTRCB chair also made a provocative declaration. “Freedom of expression,” she said, “is not absolute nor limitless. That’s why there’s a law in place, that’s why there exists MTRCB.”
It was not an idle statement but a bold reiteration of policy, conveying seriousness of intent and purpose. And it serves to remind us of the long shadow cast by the presidential decree creating the MTRCB not only on movie and television but on the exercise of freedom of expression.
So, yes, it’s providential that the second review was not conducted by board members who view the inconvenient truth in Alipato at Muog a threat to the established order. But it is unsettling just the same. The exercise of freedom of expression should not be left solely to providence, or the luck of the draw, or defined by the biases of reviewers.
Overarching power
Alipato at Muog, about the director’s search for his desaparacido brother, Jonas Burgos, has reopened a decades-long debate over censorship and freedom of expression, and at its core is a Martial Law-era presidential proclamation, Presidential Decree (PD) 1986.
Previously called the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures, the name change to MTRCB, insipid and non-threatening, is a ruse that camouflages the board’s overarching power over a wide range of creative media.
In a Facebook post, the director JL Burgos enumerated the objections made by the members of the first committee which gave the documentary an “X” rating. Their list includes some unnecessary quibbling over details, but their main objection was “subversiveness.”
For those who lived through the Marcos dictatorship, being “subversive” is a label conveniently tagged on persons or groups, or any action or form or expression, creative or factual, that unmask official lies and deceit, expose unpleasant realities, question authority, or demand justice and redress. Burgos’ reply was on the mark. He told the reviewers “there is nothing subversive about a family’s search for justice.”
‘Not mature or intelligent enough’
While press freedom has long been upheld by tradition and legal jurisprudence, the debate over freedom of expression as it applies to film has been protracted and contentious.
Film censorship proceeds from the assumption, dating as far back as the 1950s, that Filipino moviegoers are not mature and intelligent enough to sift fact from fiction, that films that glorify criminal and aberrant behavior will somehow lead to a breakdown in the moral and social order. Being immature and dull, lacking in sophisticated thinking, we need government to tell us what is moral and what is not, what is right and wrong. We cannot be trusted to make the right choices.
Through the Board of Censors, presidential appointees wielded the power to cut objectionable scenes and dialog, or ban movies altogether. Cutting and snipping yielded to classification through the MTRCB.
When exercised judiciously and impartially, classification, in the view of its proponents, can help promote responsible viewership. But in the hands of close-minded, ideologically or morally partisan reviewers, the powers of the board to classify can be misused and abused. Alipato at Muog is the most recent casualty.
These powers have also been used against political enemies or to protect the image of an incumbent president.
In 1965, the Macapagal-appointed Board of Censors banned the screening of Iginuhit ng Tadhana, a biopic about then-senator Ferdinand Marcos. The incumbent president’s father and namesake, Marcos was seen as a threat to then-president Diosdado Macapagal’s re-election bid. The ensuing controversy over the ban cast Marcos as the underdog, and, for political observers at that time, helped propel him to the presidency.
During Martial Law, these powers were used mercilessly. Scenes viewed as objectionable were cut, dialogues were muted, and movies deemed critical of the regime, such as Hubad na Bayani, were banned. In 1989, during the presidency of the late Corazon Aquino, the censors banned the showing of Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis, which depicted the terror inflicted by a paramilitary cult on a small town. The movie showed the beheading of a priest, based on a true incident where a paramilitary group, the Ilaga, beheaded Italian priest Tulio Favali. Ironically, Brocka was a member of the Constitutional Commission appointed by Ms Aquino, then president, to draft the 1987 Constitution.
Outdated in today’s world
The old assumptions that argue for government as an all-knowing, all-powerful overseer of film and broadcast media content are anachronistic in a modern, open society. The rationale behind PD 1986 is outdated and its continued existence can be seen as regressive and oppressive.
To be articulate and critical, to hold contrary ideas and produce disruptive creative works are not criminal acts. For the MTRCB, there is a greater responsibility to err on the side of openness, tolerance, and respect for the Constitution. The board must trust that Filipino viewers are mature, intelligent, and discriminating enough not to be swayed into delinquency or rebellion by a film or documentary, no matter how controversial the subject matter.
Perhaps the MTRCB chair can be forgiven for asserting the agency’s authority, its mandate clear cut and allowing no room for misinterpretation. Yet, we also recall that the MTRCB has not been consistent. How can they explain letting former president Rodrigo Duterte curse on live television, or talk about raping nuns and killing people without so much as a reprimand? Aren’t these utterances offensive to public morals? When the former president verbally abused a lady senator or badmouthed a sitting public official in his television broadcasts, didn’t these utterances undermine faith in government?
Duterte justified his verbal abuse by invoking freedom of expression. Did the MTRCB agree with him at that time, and if they did, why be selective in recognizing Duterte’s freedom to express his opinion, but not JL Burgos’?
A government secure in its mandate and confident in the stability of its institutions should have no problem with citizens exercising their constitutional freedoms. If history teaches us anything, it’s that poverty, corruption, and repression are the precursors of social unrest, not contrary ideas and inconvenient truths. – Rappler.com
