MANILA, Philippines?There?s no avoiding kid-?unfriendly? TV, however vigilant parents are in regulating their children?s viewing habits. Programs that showcase female dancers in skimpy outfits, highlight graphic presentations of crime stories, and allow suggestive liquor ads continue to cause alarm.

Violence, sexual content and foul language have sadly become very much a part of prime-time viewing. Even some shows featuring child stars carry the Parental Guidance warning.

Whatever happened to family shows that promote positive values?

?We receive viewer complaints even about certain shows that are supposedly kid-friendly,? says Consoliza Laguardia, chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), the government agency tasked with rating local films and TV programs. ?I remember one about an episode of ?Mr. Bean,? an animated show, but whose [plot lines] are adult.?

?Like education and children?s welfare, TV programming for children in the country is characterized by ?tokenism,?? notes Mag Hatol, secretary general of the Southeast Asian Foundation for Children and Television (Anak TV), Philippine advocate for child-sensitive TV.

Hatol points out: ?If you add up total programming on all terrestrial channels, we are lucky to chalk up even 10 percent as being really meant for children. Of that meager volume, only 2 percent are locally produced; each show with Pinoy material is constantly on the verge of folding up or cancellation. It?s sad for a country whose population is mostly young.?

?Among the reasons that child-friendly TV shows like ?Batibot? went off the air was lack of funding,? says Chay C. Dionco, project development officer of the National Council for Children?s Television (NCCT), which has Bantay TV as a flagship project. Television, she stresses, remains a business enterprise.

Celebrity parents find it challenging to green-light many offerings on the tube.
Who control these shows? What kind of programs would they like their own children to watch?

CONSOLIZA LAGUARDIA
Chair, Movie and Television
Review and Classification Board
(MTRCB)

Rating programs

Censorship is more restrictive with TV than with the movies. We have only two classifications, General (G) and Parental Guidance (PG), for TV; five for movies ?G, PG-13, R-13, R-18 and X.

On programs that the board ?sanitizes?/pulls out

We follow a procedure in dealing with programs with harmful content. If a viewer finds an episode of [any show] offensive, he should file a written complaint with the MTRCB. The board will investigate and determine if there is ground for the complaint. It will ask the network to explain why that episode was aired, then decide whether the show should be cleaned up, suspended, or pulled out.

Kiddie shows rated PG

?Goin? Bulilit? carries the PG warning because it?s meant more for adults, with children imitating grown-ups. We once called the attention of the producers because of a scene where the kids were hitting each other on the head. After we issued a warning, the show was toned down. The producers were very cooperative.

(?Goin? Bulilit? creator/director Edgar Mortiz and ABS-CBN Business Unit head Deo Endrinal explain more lengthily on Page E4.)

Crime stories in the news

News programs are more responsible now when airing news stories with potentially gory images. They see to it that disturbing images are blurred (?pixelized?), as when they first reported about the Maguindanao massacre.

Offensive commercials

Commercials on TV are the turf of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas. The MTRCB has a memorandum of agreement with the KBP: We turn viewer complaints over to them. In the past, some commercials were pulled out based on concerns raised by viewers.

Obstacles to the goal

An ideal children?s show is educational, informative and interesting. As I see it, the only thing that?s keeping producers from doing such shows is lack of funds to sustain them.

MAG HATOL
Secretary General, Southeast Asian Foundation for Children and Television (Anak TV)

Ideal programming

TV networks are run by businessmen and media people who are parents as well. They go home to children who, like their viewers? children, are rabid TV users. I am certain they feel the enormous chasm that needs to be filled in the area of kiddie programming. If advertisers refuse to bite into kiddie programs, our children will continue being disenfranchised as an audience. If government insists on merely sanctioning TV networks for what are perceived as infractions, rather than encouraging broadcasters to produce more for children by pumping in funds for the purpose, we will remain inferior to many developing countries that are wiser to prioritize children?s programming.

The biggest challenge to any Philippine administration in the area of children?s media is to convert any of its government stations into a real public broadcasting system. Such channel would be a splendid conduit to education: No ads that repulse or harm viewers; only informational/educational materials for an audience [aged] 4 to 94.

Harmful content

Anak TV is not a sanctioning body [but] a camaraderie of TV networks, parents, youth and NGOs. We believe it takes a village to raise a child. It is our dream to nurture a more responsible, media-smarter audience. This can be done only through a serious, national campaign on media education and TV literacy. We started our crusade a decade ago, but we?ve barely scratched the surface. If we have a country of responsible and mature media users, they will patrol their own homes and put grills on the window they often overlook: television. No amount of media content that is harmful to kids will be let in. It is not government, television or the church that should rear or baby-sit children; that is ultimately the parents? obligation.

Categorizing young audiences

It is necessary to categorize kids by age and development level. Children under 9 are the most vulnerable and must be treated with utmost care. (Anak TV does not recommend any TV viewing until age 3.) After age 9, particularly in an urban setting, the child may have been exposed to a lot of realities, through other forms of media, peers and their own home or school environment. Vigilant parenting is called for, because the parents? role as ?authority figures,? or even simply people that kids trust, could start waning, to be replaced by friends and other personalities, including their heroes in media.

Themes and topics like rape, incest, drug abuse, alcoholism, child abuse and homosexuality may be inappropriate until about age 9 [although] in many urban households, by that age, a child may have heard, casually discussed among playmates, or begun speculating about these sensitive subjects. That poses danger! It is incumbent on producers and educators to develop strategies to carefully inject sensitive topics without unduly stressing or traumatizing the children.

Any theme or topic can be rendered educational and useful if handled with critical care by people who truly prioritize kids.

Worry-free for parents

Not all cartoon programs are child-safe. ?Road Runner,? ?Mighty Mike,? ?Popeye? and a slew of other titles contain large amounts of violence. Even children?s hero films like ?Batman? and ?Superman? have a fair share of questionable content. Programs like ?Goin? Bulilit? prematurely thrust children into the adult domain. Hence the PG sign. But because it is constantly onscreen, parents tend to gloss over it! This is why we introduced the Anak TV Seal (of recommendation).

Ideally, all kiddie shows should be ?worry-free? for parents. But no single child psychology expert can claim to fully understand a child?s mind!

Ads for adults

We recommend no advertising meant for adults during children?s hour. Thankfully, there are no more tobacco ads on television. Next in line should be alcohol and gambling. It floors us to see kiddie programs irresponsibly peppered with movie trailers or government ads proclaiming the value of gambling!

Addressing concerns

Anak TV is relentless in its media literacy efforts. That?s the key?not sanctioning, not controlling, not censorship. If we had a mature and TV-smart population, everything would fall in place. Households would be more prudent about programs they tune in to; parents more aware of their roles as authority figures and role models. Networks would find it easier to innovate with programming and not constantly rely on sensationalism to hook viewers.

CHAY C. DIONCO
Project Development Officer II, National Council for Children?s Television (NCCT)

Focused, not just friendly

Bantay TV, one of the flagship projects of the National Council for Children?s Television (NCCT) and headed by executive director Frank Rivera, is an interactive monitoring of all TV shows, wherein viewers can give feedback through text, consumer hotlines and e-mail. (See Page E4.) Bantay TV has evolved from a mere complaint center to an implementing agent of constructive measures to achieve not just child-friendly, but child-focused, TV programming especially on prime time.

Nielsen?s Study of Kids and Teen TV Viewing Habits for 2008 showed that children?s favorite shows include anime/cartoons, telenovelas and game shows. These shows contain excessive sex and violence, obscenity, vulgarity, discrimination and exploitation?which are harmful to children. Overall, TV offerings in the country are far from ideal.

Lack of positive values

Bantay TV aims for programming that contributes to the shaping of positive culture, values and behavior among Filipino children. It should be identified as uniquely ours, and not mere adaptations of foreign [ideas]. In a recent dialogue between the
NCCT and TV scriptwriters, guest panelist Mario O?Hara, an acclaimed filmmaker, underscored the declining national identity on local television. He reminded writers to include Philippine culture and heritage, history and love of country in their scripts, especially for prime-time shows.

Bantay TV also aims for animated or cartoon shows without violence, game shows without obscenity, afternoon or prime time telenovelas without foul language, offensive lines and violent themes.

A business enterprise

Since television is a business enterprise, it requires a lot of advertisements. Unfortunately, shows with more commercial values than positive values have swept the landscape.

Producing animated shows and cartoons entail so much cost that networks have opted to just dub foreign material in Filipino. However, if you [look closely], foreign animated productions are actually for adults, with excessive violence and, sometimes, obscenity.

In a dialogue last Dec. 18, NCCT met with writers of prime-time TV shows and informed them of feedback from the public through Bantay TV. This dialogue will be conducted regularly.

Disturbing on prime time

On prime-time hit shows with kids portraying lead roles, invectives are prevalent in confrontation scenes, of which firearms are also a prominent part, and characters of government employees are often given negative treatment. In anime programs, fight scenes and violence are also the trend. In one popular foreign animated show, disturbing family values are portrayed. Repeatedly shown, they begin to be the norm. This trend must be stopped, if not reversed.

?For Adults Also?

?Goin? Bulilit? is a social commentary in the form of comedy?an adult-oriented theme performed by children. Just like any other show, episodes of ?Goin? Bulilit? are cleared by the censors board before they are aired. That is why it has a PG rating and carries the disclaimer, ?For Adults Also.?

Legal basis

There is a law called Republic Act No. 8370, or the Children?s Television Act, which is the legal basis for the creation of NCCT. Sanctions for violations are implemented by authorized agencies such as MTRCB, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) and Philippine Association of National Advertisers (Pana).

Broadcast code

Concerns about commercials and advertisements, such as alcohol and cigarettes, and ads with malicious content, fall under Pana and KBP. These organizations deal with the networks. Such commercials, of course, should not be aired within programs for children.

As for crime stories in news programs?the KBP?s Broadcast Code applies to all members. TV networks have to pixelize gruesome photos and videos of the crime?or shift from color to black and white, resort to silhouettes when necessary to protect the identity of the accused or the victim. The code has a special provision for minors involved in crime stories?such as, again, pixelizing the face of the accused, or giving the minor an alias instead of using his or her real name.

Wrong spelling!

NCCT currently has partnerships and institutional links with different agencies, both government and private, since we are attached to the Department of Education.

Note one commercial which spelled the word ?remittance? as ?L-B-C?: Parents and teachers complained to DepEd and NCCT acted immediately to have the commercial recalled, arguing that the ad will confuse children.

Taking a friendlier and more constructive step, the council conducted a day-long dialogue and workshop with prime-time scriptwriters to come to a mutual understanding of how we can work together.

Also, the council has launched what we call NCCT Caravan, which consists of advocacy and media education workshops for students and teachers; surveys on children?s TV viewing habits; seminars for parents, guardians and nannies; and CinePambata festival, screenings of films about children, made by children.