Movie’s director offered MTRCB seat

A day after his film was banned in local theaters, director Jose Javier Reyes was named by President Arroyo to the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

But Reyes said he would decline the appointment. "I prefer to make films," he said, and urged Mrs. Arroyo and Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to watch his movie Live Show.

The President also formally appointed STAR columnist and former education secretary Alejandro Roces as the new MTRCB chairman.

Live Show was ordered pulled out by the President Wednesday after apparent pressure from Church groups, prompting the resignation of MTRCB chairman Nicanor Tiongson.

"I wish she saw it first to allow her to make an informed decision. It cannot possibly be pornographic," said Reyes, who is also chairman of the Directors Guild of the Philippines.

Presidential Spokesman Renato Corona said the Pa-lace will review the film Monday after having ordered its confiscation. "We will watch it if it is really malaswa (prurient)," he said.

Mrs. Arroyo, a devout Roman Catholic, on Wednesday personally applied the axe to Live Show, which has triggered a debate on freedom of expression and artistic license.

Tiongson said "religious bigotry" led to the curtailment of the freedom of expression.

The film, which premiered in the Berlin International Film Festival last year and shown in other foreign venues, is about young men and women performers who engage in sex onstage at Manila nightclubs.

The President’s aides said the film had graphic sex scenes and she merely employed the police powers of the State to protect public morals.

Reyes said on dzMM radio that the film’s message was to "illustrate the humiliation of the people who are forced (by reason of poverty) to engage in this line of work."

Joel Lamangan, spokesman for the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, said Live Show is a "must-see" for both Mrs. Arroyo and Sin "because it is a social realist film that exposes and indicts the kind of society that she (Mrs. Arroyo) is actually presiding over."

"If Live Show is pornography, then President Arroyo and Sin are sick in the head," Reyes and Lamangan said.

Reyes said his film even passed the rating of a London-based Catholic film review center.

Corona said the President had not personally seen the movie but asked her aides to review it for her.

Reyes, like Tiongson, accused the dominant Roman Catholic Church of bigotry for allegedly putting pressure on Mrs. Arroyo to censor the film.

"We artists merely reflect what we see," he said. "I believe in the separation of Church and State."

Aside from Reyes, others named to the newly constituted MTRCB were director Benjamin Cervantes, actor Jaime Fabregas, feminist Marra Lanot, writer Nicolas Pichay, actor Noel Trinidad, Fr. Nicasio Cruz, lawyer Eric Mallonga, STAR columnist Alfred Yuson, TV host June Keithley, actress Rustica Carpio, reporter Efren Montano and Ma. Victoria Cu.

"I am for the full flowering of the arts; this is a basic commitment of my administration. As Henry James put it, it is art that makes life. This is clear, indubitably so," Mrs. Arroyo said, but insisted "Live Show" was "not all about art."

But an industry insider noted that only the board chairman can nominate members, saying the announced designation of the 13 new members was "interference."

Self-righteous indignation

Opposition senatorial candidates, party-list and activist groups questioned the self-righteous indignation of the new moral guardians.

Former Senate President Edgardo Angara, lead candidate of the Puwersa ng Masa, lamented that the President gave in to Church pressure in the banning of Live Show.

"At her level, she should already be immune to pressure from lobby groups. She should be able to make decisions on her own," Angara said.

Re-electionist Miriam Defensor Santiago said that the administration and the Church should leave the MTRCB alone in performing its mandate. She pointed out that the issue on what constitutes pornography had already been decided by the Supreme Court.

"In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a thing is pornographic if it has no redeeming social value," she added.

Another re-electionist senator, Gregorio Honasan said the controversy casts serious doubts on the government’s invulnerability to pressures exerted by a sector of society at the expense of the movie industry and the public in general.

In a Davao City campaign sortie, Former Press Secretary Ricardo Puno said he knew Tiongson personally and sided with the resigned MTRCB chief in his fight for freedom of expression.

"I know Tiongson and I stand by him. I am with him in this fight," said Puno, who nevertheless acknowledged that both sides have legitimate concerns that have to reviewed by the MTRCB.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said the President’s move was nothing but hypocrisy of the highest order.

"The government insists that it keeps high moral standards by banning a film, but it would not even deliver Estrada and his cohorts to justice," KMU secretary general Elmer Labog said.

The party-list Sanlakas also spoke out.

"True, there is a thin line between pornography and sexually explicit material in serious films. Yet the difference exists for those whose eyes are open to the rainbow colors of reality and do not wear blinders," said Wilson Fortaleza, national president of Sanlakas.

Fortaleza said it is not a moral revolution but a reactionary counter-revolution that the Arroyo government is waging. After pandering to a fractious military, Mrs. Arroyo is now buckling under pressure from conservatives, he said.

In a statement, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said the contention by the religious right that Live Show is pornographic is "at the least, arguable."

"More than the sight of ‘pumping’ and ‘penetration’ scenes in Live Show, what may have so worried the Macapagal-Arroyo government was the honest portrayal of the worsening social realities we continue to face today despite the ouster of President Estrada," Bayan vice chairperson Dr. Carolina Araullo said.

Lay groups associated with the Catholic Church have been instrumental in the banning of Oscar award-winners Schindler’s List and The Piano, both of which featured frontal nudity.

Then President Fidel Ramos, a Protestant, subsequently overturned the bans. – Perseus Echeminada, Maridol Rañoa-Bismark, Marichu Villanueva, Efren Danao, Mayen Jaymalin, Edith Regalado