Senator Francis N. Tolentino on Wednesday, July 5, warned that allowing the local screening of the motion picture Barbie would only lead to injurious consequences to the prestige of the Republic of the Philippines. “This will not just be an injurious to the Republic of the Philippines but would be contrary to what our country fought for and achieved under that Arbitral Ruling in 2016,” Tolentino, vice-chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said during an interview on CNN Philippines. Tolentino warned that the Hollywood film would dilute Philippine sovereignty. He made the remarks after he earlier urged the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to block the upcoming screening of the Barbie movie, which was directed and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, after the film’s digital illustration of a scene with the so-called ‘nine-dash line’—the People’s Republic of China’s basis of their supposed militaristic expansion in the entire South China Sea (SCS) region, including the zone along the West Philippine Sea (WPS). In 2016, The Hague Tribunal invalidated Beijing’s ‘nine-dash line doctrine’ over the entire SCS region following an arbitration case filed by the Philippine government on January 22, 2013. China’s nine-dash line unilaterally encroached territories of other member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). “The Arbitral Ruling clearly stated that the claim of China here has no legal basis,” Tolentino stressed. Tolentino said the Vietnamese government already decided to totally ban the screening of "Barbie" following a review, in which, the depiction of the nine-dash line scene was first noticed. But he said it’s up to the leadership of the MTRCB on whether to forbid the showing of Barbie, similar to what the said agency did when it decided not to allow the local screening of the films ‘Abominable’ and ‘Unchartered’ in 2019 and 2022 respectively, due to their depiction of the nine-dash line. Senator Robinhood C. Padilla, on the other hand, said he could not make a personal call at this time on whether or not to allow the showing of the movie in the Philippines, without first watching it. "But this is clear: The decision of whether to allow the showing of this film due to its scene about China’s 9-dash line - which contradicts the arbitral ruling favoring the Philippines - ultimately depends on the messaging of the film,’’ he said. "If the scene or scenes will affect the arbitral ruling, but if the producers would agree to edit it or them out, then I have no problem having it shown,’’ he pointed out. "But if an agreement cannot be reached to make sure the film does not become a geopolitical issue, then there is no choice but to disallow its showing here,’’ he stressed. "Thus, all this will depend on the context of the film, and to what extent the producer is willing to make sure the concern about the arbitral ruling will be addressed,’’ he added. Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, for his part, said he would not be surprised if the MTRCB will decide to ban the commercial screening of the movie. “This is not a first as there had been similar cases in the past such as the movies titled “Uncharted” and “Abominable” that have been pulled out from our cinemas because of a brief glimpse of the unilaterally declared nine-dash line of China,” Estrada pointed out. “It may be a work of fiction but still, this is a very sensitive issue. It is contrary to our national interest and China has no historic rights in the waters within the nine-dash line. No less than the Arbitral Tribunal already held in 2016 that this infamous line has no legal basis,” he said. “Matagal natin na ipinaglaban ito at dapat lamang na manindigan tayo sa mga usapin na may kinalaman sa soberanya ng bansa. Umaasa tayo na sa lalong madaling panahon ay makakapagbigay ng desisyon ang MTRCB ukol dito (We have been fighting for this for a long time and we should only stand up for matters related to the sovereignty of the country. We hope that the MTRCB will be able to give a decision on this soon),” he stressed. (With reports from Hannah Torregoza)