Invitation to join 'Free Expression Philippines'
Hello people!
I have created a group in Multiply called Free Expression Philippines -- http://freeexpression.multiply.com/ -- just so it would be easy for us to facilitate discussion and coordinate efforts re censorship issues in the country. Please read the Group Description below, and if you agree with what it says, please join the group by clicking the Join Group link at the right side of the page of http://freeexpression.multiply.com/ . Once I receive your application to join, I will approve it. If you have an empty multiply page, kindly send me a private message introducing yourself, and perhaps why you want to join the group.
You can also join our yahoogroup mailing list at http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/free_expression_phil/ .
Group discussions are currently set to private. We'll make up the rules as we go along.
If you know other people who may be interested to join and can help the cause, feel free to forward this message.
Best,
:)Dino Manrique
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Group description:
Free Expression Philippines is a group of filmmakers and artists, which aims to promote and safeguard freedom of expression in the Philippines. Contemporarily, it aims to repeal or amend P.D. 1986, which created the MTRCB, and challenge the Anti-Obscenity Bill now pending in the Senate.
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Jonas ...
Submitted by Pmel on October 26, 2008 - 4:59pm.
There's a difference between using obscenity as an artistic expression and just frankly being obscene in public just because you're enraged by some law; just as there is a difference between drawing a nude model in an art school and trying to draw a naked lady on your pocket billiard. Ya gotta know when to draw a line ya know.
I'm sure you're well aware of that.
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Why The MTRCB Post was Unpublished
Submitted by noid on October 27, 2008 - 1:48am.
Hey jonas,
Re MTRCB you can find the explanation in my Multiply blog: Why The MTRCB Post was Unpublished. Sorry about that. Might post it here, too, just so people who have read it here like you won't be left wondering.
Update: Posted the aforementioned article here: http://www.filipinowriter.com/why-the-mtrcb-post-was-unpublished
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Philippine courts adopt the Miller doctrine...
Submitted by ruth_mostrales on October 26, 2008 - 9:00pm.
...which I think is sound doctrine. I still haven't read into the provisions of the Senate Bill, but I have reason to believe it should not veer away significantly from the Obscenity Test set down by Miller. If Miller is no longer efficient, I have a feeling this new bill will more or less be overbroad and could be struck down sooner or later as unconstitutional.
The obscenity test laid down in the leading case of Miller vs. California, is three-pronged:
1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards (not national standards, as some prior tests required), must find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
2. The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and
3. The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
I will look into the Bill and inform myself, and then I shall decide. :)
Ruthie
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Thanks for reminding us with
Submitted by noid on October 27, 2008 - 10:38am.
Thanks for reminding us with Miller, Ruthie. Word is that the bill won't likely prosper in the Senate mainly because of its unconstitutionality, although we still have to make noise so that our message can really be heard particularly in the Lower House. Read the Anti-Obscenity Bill at Scribd and John Silva's article regarding the Anti-Obscenity bill's unconstitutionality.
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i have to agree that the bill is overbroad...
Submitted by ruth_mostrales on October 27, 2008 - 3:03pm.
If they're intending to make it malum prohibitum, then it's doomsday for artistic expression. The artist cannot even defend himself, because the mere act is punished without regard to motive whatsoever. That's just one of the things I can say against it. They have to revise the Constitution first before this Bill may become a law because patently, it is offensive to the protected freedom of expression which is constitutionally ingrained. We'll also be mocked by the international community as our State is a signatory to the IDHR... tsk tsk tsk
I don't see any reason why artists should be punished when they make the Pinoy's life a little less bleaker than it is.
Ruthie
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Amen. Regardless of the
Submitted by noid on October 27, 2008 - 6:11pm.
Amen. Regardless of the Motive by Armida Siguion-Reyna.
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Just a little bit curious,
Just a little bit curious, good sir, of what happened to that commendable blog penning you once wrote on MTCRB?
And, um, well, you own this site and can, of course, do whatever best you think for this venerable site of yours.., with all those things such as the no-law-shall-be-passed-abridging-the-freedom-of-speech-and-of-expression kind of thing (-or crap)...Just would like to have some idea, if you know what I mean. And well, you may understand this too as something that could somehow define of the person that I think you are.