Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (center) (Facebook)

A ranking congressman wants officials of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to resign following their decision to allow the commercial release of the movie “Barbie” starting July 19.

Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is up in arms over the board's decision, since the film reportedly contains a depiction or reference to China’s expansive nine-dash line territorial claim over the South China Sea, including parts of the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

“I am dismayed and disappointed by MRTCB’s decision. The inclusion in the movie of China’s illegal nine-dash line claim is against our national interest, which the board apparently does not appreciate. Those officials should not stay in government any minute longer,” Rodriguez said Thursday, July 13.

Ironically, the veteran solon made his resignation call a day after the seventh-year anniversary of the country’s historic victory in the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which invalidated Beijing’s expansive maritime claims via the nine-dash line.

Rodriguez said the MRTCB members’ vote to allow the commercial showing of the controversial movie “embarrasses and demeans the country and the administration of President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. before the international community.”

“I have no doubt that President BBM Jr. supports the July 12, 2016 arbitral ruling. He has repeatedly stated so. We should be the first country and people to assert it and to insist that China complies with it because it was our victory in the international tribunal,” said the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments chairman.

He further noted that Vietnam--a country that has also butted heads with China over maritime claims--didn't allow the local release of Barbie.

“If its Vietnam counterpart has found it offensive, why can’t MTRCB? asked Rodriguez.

The MTRCB justified its decision by saying, "The Board believes that, all things considered, it has no basis to ban the film 'Barbie' as there is no clear nor outright depiction of the 'nine-dash line' in the subject of the film.”

Rodriguez said the board’s statement “is an admission that there is a portrayal of China’s claim in the movie, though it was not, to use the agency’s own language, ‘clear nor outright’".

“A direct or indirect insult is still an insult. If you don’t get that, MTRCB, shame on you!” he said the Mindanaoan, who has been a consistent critic of China’s encroachment and aggressive activities in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and the country’s EEZ.