The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) on Thursday asked the Senate to give it the authority to regulate online streaming services such as Netflix.
During the Senate trade committee's hearing on the proposed Internet Transactions Act, MTRCB legal affairs chief Atty. Jonathan Presquito, sought the senators' guidance on how it could exercise its authority over the video streaming services and their contents.
Presquito said the MTRCB, under existing law, has jurisdiction over all motion pictures regardless of the medium where they are distributed.
"Even distributed electronically, that is within the jurisdiction of the MTRCB," he said.
The MTRCB official said that they have been in talks with other regulatory agencies and stakeholders since 2018 about their proposed regulation of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Iflix and the other streaming applications. He said these firms should register before the MTRCB, pay corporate taxes and follow local government regulations such as securing a mayor's permit.
He said the accreditation by the MTRCB will ensure that consumers will view authorized and age-appropriate contents.
"Streaming services like Netflix are video-on-demand platforms and we have to regulate those platforms. We have to ensure that those materials being shown on those platforms are compliant with the MTRCB law," he maintained.
The dilemma, however, would be on how to impose the regulations since online streaming services operate outside of the country. He also said there is no law that would compel them to comply with Philippine regulations.
"Netflix is not doing business in the Philippines in so far as physical , but it is clearly doing business in the Philippines...Their product is being distributed online," Presquito said.
The MTRCB official, however, clarified that they do not seek the total regulation of streaming services like what is being done in South Korea.
"In South Korea all of Netflix's contents undergo prior review and we don't want that kind of regulation here in the Philippines...We want an environment of growth," he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
"In fact during engagement with regulators in the ASEAN region, the commonality is let's allow the streaming services to flourish but how to balance that with the regulatory mechanism," he continued.
Update laws
Taking note of the MTRCB's concerns, senators agreed that there is a need to update existing laws to include services delivered thru the internet, specifically streaming services.
" Definitely doing business with subscribers in the Philippines, based in the PH and watching in the Philippines," Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, trade committee chairman, said following Presquito's statements.
Senator Imee Marcos, however, said it should be discussed under a separate bill as she said digital media is a "complicated" matter to deal with.
"To be fair to the Philippine jurisdiction, all over the world, everyone is having trouble with live streaming. As we remain in lockdown in this pandemic, the reality is the creatives are getting ever more creative about putting pirated and even legal materials online," she said.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, one of the authors of the proposed Internet Transactions Act, agreed with Marcos as he said that the measure only concerns the sale or exchange of videos on demand by digital media providers, and not the contents.
"This goes to show that the internet has disrupted many of the things that we have been doing in the past and now it is totally different in terms of process and in terms of acquiring services and goods...Our laws are not capable of doing that," Gatchalian said.
"How do we regulate Netflix when the movies, they just come to our TV sets, without MTRCB rating yet. So it's very difficult. The internet had opened the doors to companies selling straight to our homes," he added.
Pimentel said the issue may also be an "existential problem" for the MTRCB.
"Pwedeng lumabas na hindi na kayo kailangan (It would appear that you are no longer necessary)," he told the MTRCB official.
"Kailangan pag-isipan nating mabuti 'yan (We should look into it carefully). It’s either we update our laws to catch up with technology or we enforce our archaic laws and hold back technology, technological progress."
The Internet Transactions Bill seeks to protect consumers and merchants engaged in internet transactions thru the creation of an E-Commerce Bureau under the trade department.