Pursuant to the powers of the Board under Section 3, subsections 9 and 11 of Presidential Decree No. 1987 relative to matters relating to the review and classification of videogram contents, and in accordance with Board Resolution No. 98-12-132 dated December 07, 1998, all videogram retailers, dealers and wholesalers as well as the public concerned, are advised to take due notice of the following revisions of the implementing rules and regulations:

Amendments of the Review Rules and Procedures

Chapter 5
SECTION 11. Matter Subject to Review - All commercial videograms shall be subject to review by the Board before they are reproduced, distributed, sold, rented or publicly exhibited.

SECTION 12. Statement of Intent - Motion Pictures in videogram formats qualify for approval regardless of topic, theme or subject matter

Videogram contents recorded from television programs and motion pictures shall be submitted to the Board for review and classification, applying, as a general standard, contemporary Filipino values.

The classification system calls upon the assumption of responsibility by parents. The Board renders the classification to give parents advance information about the content of a videogram in order for them to decide what they will allow their children to see.

The classification shall be based on the treatment of theme, violence, language, nudity, drug abuse, and other similar elements. In making the evaluation, the Board shall not consider pieces or portions of film in isolation but shall look at the submitted material in its entirety. It shall base its decision on what is seen or heard on screen, and not on what is imagined.

SECTION 13. Review Standards - The Board shall judge the content of the videogram not in its theme but its treatment of a theme, not on its plot, but on the thesis the plot espouses, not on its parts or portions but in its entirety and the picture as a whole, disallowing that which is objectionable for being immoral, indecent, libelous, contrary to law or good customs, injurious to the prestige of the Republic of the Philippines and its people. With this guiding principle of review the Board in general should scrutinize films which:

1. glorify criminals or condone crimes;
   
2. are libelous or defamatory to the good name and reputation of any person, whether living or dead;
   
3. tend to abet the trafficking and use of prohibited drugs;
   
4. clearly constitute an attack against any race, creed or religion as distinguished from individual members thereof; and
   
5. serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for excessive violence or pornography

Pornography as here used is synonymous with obscenity, the test of which is whether the material tends to weaken the moral fiber of the community or tends to lead them to anti-social or socially counter productive behavior, when utterly bereft of redeeming social value, such as, but not limited to the unnecessary depiction of:

1. sex without consent
   
2. sex with or among children under the age of twelve (12) years
   
3. sex with animals or zooerastia;
   
4. satyriasis or nymphomania;
   
5. anal intercourse, bondage, sado-masochism and similar acts;
   
6. sexual orgies like group sex or unabated sex;
   
7. sexual licentiousness, libertinism or hedonism, or even normal copulation.

in reviewing cinematographic works on video, the Board adopts the following moral guidelines as advocated by pr. Gerald W. Healy, S.J. in determining whether a material is pornographic or not:

1. Context - The placement of the scene in the over-all narrative. A love scene is not put in simply to show flesh, it must clearly work to develop the plot. Like any other scene, the love scene must be there for a reason, to work for the protagonists' characterizations, to be a set-up for which there is a corresponding pay-off.
   
   
2. Manner of Presentation - How is the film made? How is the story told? A pornographer does not bother with production values combining the best of direction, script, cinematography, editing, music, production design, sound, and acting: he only wants to satisfy the market for prurient, degrading sex, debasing the persons watching, pandering to their lower instincts, and all for profit, the producers' bottom line.
   
   
3. Intention - What does the film want to say? Who made the film? is it a "Quickie" made with no message, made in a hurry by salacious filmmaker with a track record of exploitative stuff that in no way enriches the country's culture?
   
   
4. Culture - A film about a Muslim with four wives is not a espousal of polygamy, but a representation of a culture. Present community standards must be considered without either, blanket approval or condemnation. What is customary is one part of the world would be shocking in another area. Even in the Church we have allowed for changes, e.g., women no longer wear veils in Church, and they are lectors in the pulpits, etc.

The test of unjustified or excessive violence is whether the material tends to lead the community into violent anti social or socially counterproductive behavior, or whether it is utterly bereft of redeeming social value, such as, but not limited to the unnecessary depiction of:

1. violent individual or group oppression, or repression of the physically and socially weak;
   
   
2. brutality
   
   
3. carnage, genocide and similar acts;
   
   
4. sado-masochism;
   
   
5. violence in sex; and
   
   
6. gory and visceral results or aftermath of violence.

In the determination of whether or not a film tends to weaken the moral fiber to induce anti-social or socially counterproductive behavior, the primary concern is not the theme or plot but the express or implied message which the scene, action or dialogue thereof conveys.

The test in each case is the impact of the entire film, rather than of its isolated portions on the average person in the community, in the light of present-day standards of morality and sound behavior.

The above shall take effect after 15 days from its first publication in a newspaper of genera! circulation.

Adopted: 17 Dec. 1998

(SGD.) ATTY. ENRIQUE M. MONTERO
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer