The key findings and analysis of artistic freedom in The Philippines from the Southeast Asia Artistic Freedom RADAR, 2023 – 2024.
“I am offended as a Christian” and other acts of moral policing
In 2022, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the Presidential elections in the Philippines, with his running mate Sara Duterte winning for Vice President. The expectation was a continuation of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s policies, including but not limited to the violence of a drug war, the harsh rhetoric against critics, and the continued construction of a climate of fear. This expectation is not unfounded: for most of the 2022 electoral campaign, Marcos spoke in line with the former President’s policies on China and the West Philippine Sea, the drug war, and the fight against the militant Left. These issues played a huge part in the arts censorship cases across President Duterte’s time, from 2016 to 2022. That these have figured little (if at all) in the 16 challenges to artistic freedom and cultural practices documented from 2023 to 2024 is an important point to make for this period in the research.
President Marcos Jr.’s leadership was clearly different from Duterte’s from the start: it did not live off the violent rhetoric and it eased off critics. Instead, Marcos went through the ministerial duty of appointing new leaders into key arts and culture State institutions, including to the regulatory body the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).
The latter appointment is important to highlight. Ms Lala Sotto, the new Chairperson of MTRCB, is know primarily as a politician and for being the daughter of Tito Sotto, a comedian, TV host and conservative politician, with staunch advocacies against reproductive health rights and divorce. As MTRCB Chairperson, Sotto is at the forefront of multiple arts censorship cases for this period, often issuing public statements to explain her agency’s decisions to proscribe certain television content and films.
Another major change for this period is the creation of civil society organization Kapisanan ng Social Media Broadcasters ng Pilipinas, Inc. (KSMBPI) (Social Media Broadcasters of the Philippines, Inc.). Led first by Dr. Michael Aragon and later by Atty. Mark Tolentino, this organization is a self-proclaimed regulatory body for arts and culture content, that “serves as the watchdog of the cyberspace of the Philippines”. However, there appear to be no formally published guidelines on its website. Neither does it have any regulatory power. Instead, it has used the courts system to file cases against artists whose content it deems offensive. It also had an audience with the MTRCB chairperson at least once, in September 2023.
Another shift in national policy needs to be noted here. During the Duterte presidency, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), was used to tag artists and creatives considered as “activist” or “critical” as “communist”, allowing the State to censure artists and/or their creative works. President Marcos kept NTF-ELCAC but has effectively weakened it by cutting its funding by 24 billion pesos.
These contexts are important in understanding the data gathered on challenges to artistic freedom in the country from 2023 to 2024. A total of 16 cases were documented across this 24-month period, with a majority of 11 coming from film and broadcast arts. This is no surprise given the regulatory powers of MTRCB over film and television, but this is specifically important given this change in leadership. Note that at the tail-end of the tenure of the last President’s MTRCB Chairperson, between 2021 to 2022, there was no documented censorship of any film or TV show, with focus falling on streaming platforms and what these contained—something that the MTRCB has no jurisdiction over. For 2023 to 2024, as the MTRCB’s purview did not extend to streaming or online content, the KSMBPI in its activist role, has filled in that gap actively targeting , films streamed on digital platforms and content uploaded online. A far second is the visual arts with 2 cases, both of which involve street protest art—a consistently targeted form from previous years.
The research tool identifies what is targeted in these cases—whether it is the artist, the art work or the presenter. In the Philippines, 10 out of 16 cases targeted the artist or the presenter of the work, which is especially important to mention because the cases filed by the KSMBPI focused specifically on artists with films streamed on digital platforms, such as the female actors in sexy or sex-focused films on the platform Vivamax. This is different from, say, the MTRCB, regulating a film based on what it contains, instead of censuring the actress within it, say giving the film “Marupok As F*ck” a rating that disallows it from being screened in commercial cinemas, without holding its lead actress, Maris Racal accountable.
Our research documented each step along the challenge chain, with some cases facing multiple challenges from a range of agents. In the Philippines however, 11 out of the 16 documented cases only faced a single challenge step. This may be attributed to the regulatory power of MTRCB—Filmmakers tend to play by the rules of this agency if only to get their films into commercial cinemas.
Interestingly, the two cases that received three challenges remain as open cases. These are Toni Fowler’s music video for the song “MPL”, and drag artist Pura Luka Vega with their Jesus Christ performance. Both continue to face cases in court, with a case filed by KSMBPI for the former, and with various cases filed by religious organizations for the latter.
It is because of the MTRCB that the State remains as the primary agent of censorship in the cases from 2023 to 2024, with 8 out of 16 cases being initiated by the regulatory agency. But KSMBPI, a new player in the scene, instigated three acts of censorship against creative work, while also filing cases against some of those first challenged by others, i.e., the case of Vice Ganda and Ion Perez, licking icing off their fingers on a segment on their TV show Its Showtime!
Both the MTRCB and the KBSMPI work towards the moral policing of arts and culture. The KBSMPI, as the “watchdog” of cyberspace, filed cases against artists based on what it sees as their violation of Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code or “immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions and indecent shows” as these are uploaded to the internet or onto digital platforms. The MTRCB’s regulation has to do with protecting children from what it views as immoral and/or offensive content on television and regulating films for public viewing based on what it deems to be within cultural norms. A point of interest is how the MTRCB usually invokes “the public” in instigating an act of censure, saying that they have received complaints about a certain work or artist. The MTRCB has not provided examples of such complaints to date.
With this kind of moral policing, it is no surprise that the most vulnerable groups revealed by the research are women and LGBTQIA+ artists. A majority of the cases KSMBPI filed were against female content creators such as singer Toni Fowler and actresses Angeli Kang, AJ Raval, Ayanna Misola, and Azi Acosta; it also filed a case against Vice Ganda and Ion Perez, a well-known queer couple.
The public on social media were another source of moral policing against women. One example is the Modest Fashion Show mounted during a Halal Expo, which was questioned online for being immodest, as Muslim women walking the runway makes them “a spectacle to be seen in public”.
A case that needs to be mentioned here is that of drag performer Pura Luka Vega, who was targeted by multiple religious organizations for a clip of a ticketed live performance, which an audience member took a video of and uploaded online. Showing Pura performing a rock version of the religious song “Our Father” in a full Jesus Christ costume, this triggered a slew of legal actions against them, as well as multiple personas non-grata issuances across different provinces in the country. What was used to target Pura was Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Cybercrime Law. This is also what the KSMBPI used to target actresses and content creators online for “obscene acts”.
Meanwhile, the Sotto-led MTRCB started using Presidential Decree 1986, which created the MTRCB, as reason enough for censure. I flag it here as this has not been used in this way for decades given how broad and general its terms are. Used against a documentary about a missing activist, Alipato at Mugo (Embers and Fortress) the MTRCB claimed that it “tends to undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their government and/or duly-constituted authorities”. Against the Hollywood film Dear Santa, Sotto herself used PD 1986 as it states that a film is “unfit for public exhibition” if it “clearly constitutes an attack against any race, creed or religion”. PD 1986 was also used against the TV show Private Convos with Doc Rica, this time using the part about disallowing any TV show or film that “purely appeals to prurient interests”.
With only 16 cases, 11 were targeted for moral policing from 2023 to 2024. This is indicative of how while the new national leadership might wash its hands of the suppression of creative freedom, its new appointees to powerful positions are just getting started with their own brand of censorship. Speaking to Congress about censoring the film Dear Satan, Sotto said: “I am offended as a Christian.”
That this articulation went over the heads of the public, is telling. Ten cases out of 16 received no public support. Social media has become algorithmically dispersed and few of these cases stayed on online feeds long enough to gather interest. This also speaks to the fact that where before, a great number of censorship cases were instigated online, 11 out of 16 cases for this period had no online component. And yet the dangers of having not one, but two organizations morally policing the arts cannot be overstated. It can only be portents of things to come.
References:
ABS-CBN News. Toni Fowler posts bail after arrest order on cybercrime charge. ABSCBNNews.com. 19 Jan 2024.
Argosino, Fait. ‘Dear Satan’ offends me as a Christian, says MTRCB chief Lala Sotto. Inquirer.net. 3 September 2024.
Domingo, Katrina & Job Manahan. Tito Sotto’s daughter Lala Sotto is new MTRCB chairperson. ABS-CBN News. 7 Jul 2022.
Evangelista, Jessica Ann. MTRCB denies appeal to reverse ruling on ‘Private Convos with Doc Rica’. Inquirer.net. 14 March 2024.
Llemit, Kathleen A. Angeli Khang faces 6 criminal charges filed by social media broadcasters for alleged explicit posts. Philstar.com. 12 October 2023.
—–. Cinemalaya Special Jury winner ‘Alipato at Muog’ appeals MTRCB X rating. Philstar.com 25 August 2024.
Mallorca, Hannah. LOOK: Vice Ganda’s accusers met with MTRCB weeks before cybercrime charge. Inquirer.net 13 September 2023.
Torres, Sherrie Ann. NTF-ELCAC to suffer P24 billion budget cut next year: Angara. ABS-CBN News. 9 Nov 2021.
GMA Integrated News. Pura Luka Vega is arrested anew for viral ‘Ama Namin’ performance. GMA News Online. 29 February 2024.
PEP Troika. Topakk ni Arjo Atayde, R16 ang habol na MTRCB rating. Pep.ph. 23 Oct 2024.
Valderrama, Evangeline. Vice Ganda, Ion Perez charged with violation of cybercrime law. Inquirer.net. 13 September 2023.
Presidential Decree 1986. Creating the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. The LawPhil Project. Accessed April 2025.
Presidential Decree No. 960. Amending Article 201 of the Revise Pernal Code and for Other Purposes. 14 July 1976. The LawPhil Project. Accessed April 2025.
Vision, Mission, and Mandate. MTRCB Website. Accessed April 2025.
About the author(s)
Katrina Stuart Santiago is a writer and cultural critic from Manila, with a 15-year writing practice across mainstream and fringe publications, in print and on digital. Her creative practice has fueled her activism, which cuts across issues of cultural labor, systemic dysfunctions, and institutional crises, and how these are tied to bigger issues of nation and governance. She is founding director of small press, bookshop, and gallery Everything’s Fine, co-author of UNESCO-Germany's Fair Culture Charter, and collaborator of the Feminist Journalist Network of the Association for Women in Development. She heads the civil society organization People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action-PAGASAph that seeks to provide the space for political action from younger civil society actors, and was 2023 Public Intellectual of the Democracy Discourse Series of the Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub of the De La Salle University. Through Everything's Fine she is constantly redefining her practice as an independent cultural worker, as she nurtures communities that seek safe, kind, and productive spaces for difficult conversations and relevant dialogue. She writes at katrinastuartsantiago.com and is @radikalchick online.
