Small wonders

With their bright eyes and precocious bearing, child actors have always been a remarkable part of Philippine show business. From Vilma to Aiza to Zaijan, child actors have tickled the funny bone of, and induced tears from, fans and viewers, ranking these moppets and tykes, these toddlers and prodigies, among the true treasures of Filipino productions. Yet those same children are often left unprotected from the unique dangers of their field. The same talents we love, we actually put to risk because we demand so much from them.

Hollywood has very strict rules governing the amount of time child actors can spend working and the kind of work they can actually do, as well as the conditions of their workplace. Those same guidelines should be strictly enforced in the Philippine setting.

Which is why the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board’s initiative to hold a summit in April on the well-being of children in Philippine show business is truly an idea whose time has come. The MTRCB will be headlining the proposed summit together with the two government agencies involved in the employment of child actors, the Department of Labor and Employment and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Chief among the issues to be tackled is the number of hours the children work, according to MTRCB chair Mary Grace Poe-Llamanzares. “As it is now, when a child works, everything is confined within a definite time period. He or she cannot work overtime. When a child enters into an agreement, a permit from the DOLE has to be secured,” she says.

The time child actors spend working is a particularly sensitive issue, as some of them may be serving as breadwinners for their families, leading them to keep a grueling schedule.

Ironically, the more popular child actors become, the more projects are lined up for them, thus depriving them of the necessary time to rest and recover. Add to that the fact that the child actors’ working time can adversely affect the number of hours they should be spending in school or on study and homework. This summit is ground-breaking because it will include all of the TV and movie companies, as well as child psychologists and representatives of the National Council for Children’s Television.

But even before that, the MTRCB will be taking a crucial step forward in March when, according to Llamanzares, a dialogue will be held to tackle “the sexualization of a scene.” She explains: “The perennial complaint about TV variety shows is that dancers’ outfits are too short. But when you really think about it, dancers have been wearing miniskirts since the 1960s. What makes an outfit controversial is how it is used in a scene. That’s called sexualization.”

Far from being a knee-jerk move, this summit has its roots almost from the time Llamanzares took office, and even before the infamous case of a 6-year-old boy’s controversial dance in the game show “Willing Willie” in 2011, though that incident did heighten people’s awareness of how children should be treated and depicted on TV and in the movies.

There is also the matter of what kind of roles children should be allowed to portray. Among the traditional comedic fare on TV are child actors pretending to be grownups, to guffaws from an older audience. “Among the questions to be asked are: Should the child portray a role that he/she may not understand?” Llamanzares says. “Should a child have to pretend to be an adult, like in ‘Goin’ Bulilit?’”

This kind of thoughtful, proactive work is most welcome from the MTRCB, especially now that it has decided its purview goes beyond the not unimportant work of rating TV shows and movies.

This initiative transforms the MTRCB into an agenda-setting entity that can have a say on an issue—such as when it suspended “Willing Willie” for 30 days in the fallout from the dancing boy incident—while also promoting self-regulation. “It was not just about meting out punishment. We are offering a constructive resolution, so that the incident will not be repeated,” Llamanzares said at the time, adding: “We need to work with industry leaders and other government agencies to come up with specific guidelines.”

That was last year, and now the MTRCB is opening the curtains to a summit that the industry really needs, a summit that will protect the small wonders of screen and TV that Filipinos so love. It’s a move that deserves to be rated A.