President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. played down the controversy on the use a map showing China’s nine-dash line in the Hollywood movie, “Barbie,” calling it “fiction.”
“Siyempre, ‘yung sinasabi nila ‘yung kasama doon sa ‘yung boundary line na ginawa. Ang sagot ko doon, what do you expect? It’s a work of fiction,” Marcos said in a chance interview on the sidelines of his official engagements in Northern Samar.
“Maganda raw eh, sabi nila,” he also said of the film.
Vietnam earlier banned its showing for allegedly depicting the controversial map.
The nine-dash line is significant as it is used by China to assert its claims over South China Sea, which has been rejected by the international tribunal.
The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board earlier allowed the screening of the film, saying that the map in question was not an outright depiction of China’s nine-dash line.
“Conversely, if the material does not pose such a threat then, in the spirit of fairness and objectivity, we will not impose a ban on such materials,” the censors said.
Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) also said the lines depicted in the movie were nothing more than a “fictitious path in an imaginary world map.”
The Philippines has pulled out the screening of two films – Uncharted in 2022 and Abominable in 2019 – due to a scene that showed China’s nine-dash line map encroaching on Philippine waters.
The DFA said the scenes from the movies containing images of China’s map of the South China Sea were “contrary to national interest” prompting it to request the MTRCB to review and prohibit it from being shown in local theaters.
In the case of “Barbie,” the MTRCB said it had “no basis to ban the film ‘Barbie’ as there is no clear nor outright depiction of the ‘nine-dash line’ in the subject film, in comparison to films such as ‘Abominable’ and ‘Uncharted’.”—LDF, GMA Integrated News
Marcos on ‘Barbie’ movie: It’s a work of fiction
Source: Balita News
0 Comments