Objections not stopping Magpale on Anti-Tabloid Ordinance

CEBU, Philippines - Amid oppositions from media groups in Cebu, Vice Governor Agnes Magpale said the Provincial Board will continue to push for an Anti-Tabloid Ordinance.

Magpale, in an interview, said that despite the opposition made by the Cebu Media Legal Aid (CEMLA), a lot of people support the government’s initiative to ban tabloids with obscene and sexually provocative content.

“Judging from the calls and from the people, I am so glad that I initiated this because many were saying ‘I agree with you’ because these things are already proliferating,” Magpale told The FREEMAN.

The vice governor further said the latest group of people who gave thrown support for their move was a women’s group in Daanbantayan where she visited last Tuesday for the Haladaya Festival.

“Miingon sila ‘Ma’am, nagpasalamat mi na inyong gituki ning butanga.’ They were a group of ordinary women,” Magpale said.

CEMLA, in a letter proposal to the Board, said they view with alarm the proposed ordinance.

Organized under the auspices of the Cebu Citizens-Press Council, Cemla stated that while they reject obscenity, they believe the proposal is “unconstitutional, unnecessary and dangerous.”

Furthermore, CEMLA said the proposed ordinance is “ambiguous and misinformed; is prior restraint, a no-no in a democracy; a breach of the equal protection clause and transgresses due process of law.”

CEMLA also sees the ordinance as unnecessary because there are existing provisions in the Revised Penal Code that prohibit obscenity.

Also, the group believes that the ordinance may be open to abuse because “determination of what is obscene is left to town and city mayors who may have grudges against publications that publish adverse news or opinion, thus, dangerous.”

On this matter, the vice governor advised everyone, including the CEMLA, to just wait for the public hearing where everybody can deliver their respective positions on the issue. Magpale earlier acknowledged she is not a lawyer and her approach was that of a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. She said she’s looking at the welfare of women and children.  (FREEMAN)