BERNAL, CHLOE V.

READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY BS PH1-01

REACTION PAPER

The Philippine Women’s University (PWU) hosted an event entitled “Para sa Matalino at
Responsableng Panonood ng Pamilyang Pilipino Forum” on June 7, 2019 at the Conrado Benitez
Hall. It was led by the three board members of the Movie and Television Review and Classification
Board (MTRCB) and they mainly tackled the different meanings and importance of the revised
television and movie ratings. The program aims to encourage the students to practice responsible
viewership for different genres of media available today. This is to avoid the hidden dangers that
it may cause to the viewers.
Filipinos usually ignore the MTRCB ratings. One of the main reasons for this is due to their lack of
awareness regarding the dangers that certain contents may pose. I believe that it is a good event
to remind us that we should also be responsible for what we watch and what people around us
watch; especially for younger people who tend to mimic what they see. There are instances
wherein we might think that cartoons are harmless, but may unknowingly project violent or
sexual tendencies on screen which may greatly influence a child.
The students present in the event are eventually going to be the future leaders and parents which
is why as early as now we should start guiding them, and spreading awareness to promote
responsible viewing. It is nice to see that the MTRCB are giving efforts to send this message to
us. However, I think that the reason as to why the MTRCB ratings are being ignored is because
advancement of technology. The internet has made it possible for people to watch any type of
shows regardless of whether it is safe for them to watch or not. The internet is incredibly
uncensored. I have seen a lot of unmonitored violent content that are easily accessible to certain
platforms like YouTube. The main problem about this is that the MTRCB has little to no control
over the hundreds of videos that are being uploaded everyday which makes people vulnerable
to content that are possibly inappropriate for them.
There are no problems with movies, but I noticed that there has been a significant decline over
certain groups in our population that patronize television contents. TV shows have been available
online and certain platforms like Netflix. Despite the presence of ratings in some providers, I
believe that most of these ratings aren’t catered to the Filipino culture and standard. The board
members mentioned that they rate shows based on the level of our culture and conservatism
and I wondered at the event if the MTRCB was ever interested in reviewing online contents that
most Filipinos watch. Nevertheless, I believe that the power is still vested at the viewer itself.
This event served as a reminder for me, and that I should carefully assess the contents that people
around me watch since I currently have cousins who are young and use the internet. Other than
that, the speakers were really concise and blunt with their points. Each of the talk were short,
but it’s effective since they only discussed the important parts that we need to know without
giving unimportant details