MANILA, Philippines - Former president and now Pampanga 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants to limit the exposure of children to violent television programming.
The former chief executive and her son, Camarines Sur 2nd District Rep. Dato Arroyo, have vowed to re-file next Congress a bill mandating the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to prohibit all television and cable stations from airing violent programs, movies or footages from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“Television is a powerful teacher of young children that sometimes a modern-day hero who uses violence to get what he wants, confuses the young between real violence and the make-believe violence, thinking that criminals in the tube are powerful role models,†the younger Arroyo said.
Under the Arroyo-sponsored measure, the MTRCB and the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) shall prescribe rules for rating the level of violence in television programming, in consultation with television broadcasters, cable operators, concerned non-government organizations for children, and the private sector.
Arroyo said the law that created the MTRCB does not authorize the agency to prescribe ratings for violence in television programming and rules for signals "containing specifications for blocking violent programming in apparatuses with such technical capability."
He added that the Public Telecommunication Policy Act of the Philippines was enacted into law but also failed to give authority to the NTC for broadcast operations of public communications entities.