Censorship in television
I applaud a decision by the media censorship body, popularly known as MTRCB, for suspending a documentary for airing an episode showing a father and son using drugs.
The ABS-CBN’s “The correspondents” had an episode that aired in June called “Ang Pinoy Rasta” (The Filipino Rasta) where a young man was shown smoking marijuana in front of his father, who also confessed to smoking the illegal drug with his son.
MTRCB said that the episode depicted that smoking marijuana “is an enjoyable activity…sending a strong message that [it’s] okay.”. The ABS-CBN network countered that the documentary was not about drug use but rather about Rastafari, a Jamaican religious practice that some Filipinos followed”.
And like I said, I applaud MTRCB’s decision. I didn’t watch the docu series and I don’t know much about Rastafari ( I googled it and scanned through the links) but the practice doesn’t seem to have much to do with drug use. How and why the show’s producers included a segment on that is anyone’s guess. But if they had to show that drug use was a prevalent activity by those who practice the religion, then there’s a more intelligent way of depicting that without having to show the actual. I feel the same way with prostitution, binge drinking, violence, and sexual activities shown on TV, whether it’s the news or shows. We hear about them everywhere, and we may have witnessed these ourselves. We know these are realities in the Philippines. We don’t have to show them on TV just to let the viewers know that they’re real. If we want to show an episode about them, or get the viewers to know that the characters are engaged in such acts, there are a lot of more creative, intelligent, and certainly less vulgar ways of showing them.
[Southeast Asian Press Alliance has more on the news.]
Tags: ABS-CBN, censorship, entertainment, movies, MTRCB, Philippine culture, television
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POSTED IN: Arts and Entertainment, General: Philippine Culture, Personal Experiences
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