Sen. Imee Marcos: MTRCB should ‘self destruct’ already

Sen. Imee R. Marcos —Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau

MANILA, Philippines — Favoring self-regulation, Sen. Imee Marcos on Thursday said the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) should “self-destruct” already.

The senator noted that the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s Presidential Decree No. 1986 clearly states that the MTRCB should only exist “until such time the industry is capable of policing itself, governing itself, or censoring itself if necessary.”

“I believe, just like my father, that the MTRCB should self-destruct. Those from the MTRCB are upset with me but they should read the Presidential Decree and see how it was written,” Marcos said in a forum.

READ: ‘Dear Satan’ X-rating by MTRCB is ‘illegal, unconstitutional’

Imee believes that Marcos Sr. wanted to emulate the self-regulation model of the United States film industry.

“I believe my father wanted and the model he had in mind was similar to that of US, where they have their own film academy. They have their own industry rating system.) So the industry itself determines which is fit for viewing and and rates them accordingly,” she said.

“Where in the Philippines, the government is regulating it. The law was created in nineteen kopong-kopong [the senator making allusion that it was crafted so long ago, no one remembers it], yet the MTRCB is insisting that the industry has no capacity to self-regulate. But the law is clear, only until such a time, it needs to self-destruct,” she continued.

Marcos made this response when asked to react to MTRCB’s “X rating” to Dear Satan, whose chairman, Lala Sotto-Antonio, declared that the movie is offensive to Christian sensibilities.

The senator noted that the MTRCB slapped an X rating even for award-winning movies.

“This is not the first time an X rating was given. We have so many award-winning movies overseas that you can’t watch here,” she lamented.