DSWD wants sexy dancers off noontime shows

If they have to go onstage in scanty outfits to dance suggestively, they are better off doing this at nighttime.

Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman wants scantily clad dancers removed from noontime variety shows watched by children and transferred to late night shows instead.

Soliman said children who are constantly exposed to these dance numbers may grow up with distorted values.

These numbers feature women dancing with what she describes as "very sexual movements." She said such dance routines are "dangerous to the young people, who might grow up copying these dances."

‘When they grow up... they will most likely copy what they watched" as children, she said, adding that a result of such copy-catting is that "your respect for your body is much less."

Besides this, Soliman said, dancers who perform such numbers are usually subjected to jokes with sexual connotations by the show hosts.

"I am very passionate about this because I don’t think we want a generation of young people thinking that respect for one’s body can be taken lightly," she said.

"I’m not conservative but, for me, those dances, those clothes are appropriate for the nighttime."

Last year, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) wrote to the Advertising Board and the Kilusan ng Mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) seeking to have sexy dancing by scantily clad women banned from noontime shows.

The DSWD is set to reiterate its request to the AdBoard and KBP and ask that these dance routines be confined to evening show slots instead.

Soliman warned that children who are not yet of school age spend most of their time watching television - which has become an "electronic nanny."

She said it is not enough to put "parental guidance" signs on noontime shows because many children are now left in the care of nannies and other non-parent caregivers who may lack knowledge about the implications of such shows.

"Noontime programs that have scantily-clad dancers should be shown at times when kids don’t watch the television much or when parents are around to guide them," Soliman said.