Palace supports show episodes’ removal over nine-dash line

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang is supportive of the move of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to seek the removal of the episodes of Netflix’s political drama “Pine Gap” which showed a map of China’s nine-dash line that was voided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the episodes, were based on a “very inaccurate myth and scope” of the Chinese territory.

“We support that because the MTRCB is under the Office of the President,” Roque said at a press briefing yesterday.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) asked the MTRCB to prevent the showing (of the episodes) in our country because they are based on very inaccurate myth and scope of the Chinese territory,” he added.

Netflix has removed episodes two and three of the spy drama and tagged each with: “This episode removed by government demand.”

It was not clear when the streaming platform pulled out the episodes.

The nine-dash line demarcates China’s claims in the South China Sea and covers virtually the entire busy sea lane.?In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights over resources within the so-called nine-dash line.

The court also affirmed the Philippines’ sovereign rights over its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

China has refused to recognize the landmark ruling, describing it as “illegal since day one.”

Earlier this week, the DFA announced that the MTRCB decided to pull out the episodes of the “Pine Gap” for showing a map of China’s nine-dash line and violating the Philippines’ sovereignty.

The board ordered the immediate pull-out of the episodes by its provider Netflix from its video streaming platform.

In its decision, the MTRCB underscored that “under a whole-of-nation approach, every instrumentality of the government, whenever presented with the opportunity, has the responsibility to counter China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea to assert the Philippines’ territorial integrity,” the DFA said in a statement.

It further noted that the portrayal of the illegal nine-dash line in “Pine Gap” is “no accident as it was consciously designed and calculated to specifically convey a message that China’s nine-dash line legitimately exists.”

The portrayal, the DFA said, was a crafty attempt to perpetuate and memorialize in the consciousness of the present generation of viewers and the generations to come the illegal nine-dash line.

It also claimed that the use of the motion picture is China’s unconventional approach to gain an upper hand in the South China Sea row. – Pia Lee Brago