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Staying on track

NO HOLDS BARRED

Armida Siguion-Reyna

03/20/2009

Nicole recants rape charges against Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith coincidentally, just coincidentally, after US President Barack Obama called Gloria Arroyo, and most everyone is thrown off-kilter. I can imagine the Pasig River Mafia laughing their heads off, for really, who’s talking about alleged briber Manuel Gaite’s appointment to take over bribee Jesus Martinez’s post at the SEC?

Go and laugh at the new words that sprout up these days. There remains no better way to attract attention than through such newly-minted words that come with built-in recall factor. Briber vs bribee, there’s no way you can beat that.

Seriously, this is exactly what the administration wants. The more explosive the diversion, the better to distract activists with, leaving the Chief Kawatanesa — you’ve been warned about new words — and her cabal to lay hands on what they haven’t yet stolen from the National Treasury, or sold. Shorelines, fishing reefs, regime of islands, anyone?

I understand the emotional reaction to the Nicole retraction, the pros and the cons. It’s not hard to see why there’s much speculation over how much Nicole actually got: P100,000 nga ba, o $100,000, on top of an immigrant’s visa? Time was when the name of the game was Kuwarta o Kahon; it has become Pera o Puri.

But hey, 2010 is just around the corner. If we haven’t forgotten how we were robbed of the elections we thought was already in the bag for our candidate in 2004, we need to stay the course and continue with what needs to be done and what we can do according to expertise. Otherwise they’ll get 2010 again. Out of the frying-pan and into the fire we go, we become party to the making of more Nicoles if we don’t put a stop to this dispensation’s thievery and drive home the message: Tama na, sobra na, we are aware of all your tricks to stifle dissent so from there you’re able to stay in power.

For instance, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board’s attempt to stop the showing of films at the University of the Philippines’ Film Center, unless MTRCB-approved.

On the surface it appears as the usual MTRCB whining. Board Chairman Marissa Laguardia wrote UP president Emerlinda Roman to complain about the public and commercial screenings of movies that had been classified “unfit for public exhibition,” not produced for “educational purposes” but clearly for enterprise, charging P150 to P250 per person.

PD 1986, the law that created the MTRCB, “prohibits the public and commercial exhibition of films without a permit from the board,” added Laguardia, who also took pains to point out that RA 9500, also known as the UP Charter of 2008, “doesn’t exempt UP of the UP Film Center from the jurisdiction of the MTRCB.”

UP president Roman referred the matter to lawyer Teddy Te, UP vice president for Legal Affairs, who asked for documentary evidence to prove that violations had been committed, and also stressed that the UP Film Center and Institute “are covered by academic freedom guaranteed not only by RA 9500, but also by the Constitution.”

The exchange between the two offices was reported by Bayani San Diego of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and he quoted MTRCB member Mario Hernando as having said that it was during my tenure as MTRCB head that the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the embassies, and the UP were identified as “censorship-free.”

Indulge me, as I clarify my good friend Mario’s statement. In 1989, way before I’d even dreamt of going back to the post I first occupied in 1986 as officer-in-charge, pre-Manuel Morato, Lino Brocka showed “Orapronobis” at the UP Film Center without an exhibition permit, but protected by the mantle of academic freedom. Morato threatened to bring in cops to stop the screening but never did, presumably because he’d been told the principle of academic freedom was inviolate.

Morato pushed his rant about “Orapronobis” not deserving of a UP screening by alleging that in New York City it was shown at “an x-rated moviehouse, the Paris Theater (actually within spitting distance of the Plaza Hotel, at West 58th Street).” That lie could have caused academic freedom to hold its ground: When our own “Ligaya ang Itawag Mo sa Akin” and a little less than a year later “Ang Lalaki sa Buhay ni Selya (produced for Star Cinema)” got “X-ed,” by the Jess Sison MTRCB, we were able to screen at the UP Film Center under the same protection.

PD 1986 admits exemptions, to “motion pictures, television programs or publicity material imprinted or exhibited by the Philippine government and/or its departments and agencies, and newsreels (Section 7, Unauthorized Showing or Exhibition).” I’m not a lawyer, but last I looked, the UP as National University falls under the ambit of government. Beyond RA 9500, the Constitution in Article XIV, Section 5, upholds “academic freedom” not only for UP but for “all institutions of higher learning.” So, there.

Having made my clarification, I go back to the Laguardia complaint, said to have been brought about by the proliferation of gay “sexploitation” indie films.

Using films with adult content as bogeyman and hoping that with the indignant uproar of moralists the UP backtracks on the principle of academic freedom, Laguardia and company get to override what is shown at the UP Film Center and the UP Film Institute. At risk are the fine political shorts, such as those in the “Rights v. 2” collection, a series of independently produced public service advertisements on the present human rights situation. We cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Allowing the MTRCB to intrude into academic freedom to bar the screening of a say, “salacious” gay film at the UP Film Center allows it to bar a political film. And this I fear to be the core of the Laguardia letter. Call me praning, but what if instead of an election in 2010, there’s martial rule? Permit it the precedent now, and the MTRCB will be able to stop political filmmakers from screening at the UP Film Center, to effectively silence protest.

We let this happen and the Kotong Queen and her court of Kotongeros reign forever and ever. With due respect to the women activists who worked hard to get Nicole justice, we cannot go off-track the goal to keep Gloria Arroyo and her anointed from winning 2010.

(For comments, write: armida114@yahoo.com)