by Pamela Mariz Geminiano/PNA
BAGUIO CITY— The Optical Media Board (OMB) has conducted an inspection in cinemas as part of the activities of the Cinema Monitoring Enforcement for the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).
“Since we have already established our satellite office here in Baguio city, we decided to include Baguio in our annual cinema monitoring activity during the Metro Manila Film Festival,” said lawyer Victor Padilla II in a telephone interview with Philippine News Agency on Thursday.
The cinema inspection in in this mountain resort city is aimed at intensifying the OMB’s efforts to fight piracy at its source, protecting locally-made films from illegally copied while being shown in cinemas nationwide.
He reiterated that “cinema cam-cording” has always been the source of piracy, and the presence of the OMB agents in the cinemas become deterrent from illegal activities.
“It prevents the ‘pirates’ from even trying. This is our proactive way of fighting piracy,” he added.
Republic Act (RA)10088 also known as the “Anti-Camcording Act of 2010”, prohibits and penalizes the unauthorized use, possession, and or control of audiovisual recording devices for the unauthorized recording of cinematographic films and other audio-visual works and or their soundtracks in an exhibition facility, providing penalties therefore and other purposes.
A simple act of taking a ‘selfie’ while watching already constitutes a violation of the law.
“A person who will be found guilty of violating the provisions shall be subject to a fine PHP50,000 but not exceeding PHP750,000 and imprisonment of six months to six years,” Padilla said.
When asked how prevalent cam-cording is, he said “there were several instances already that our agents or volunteers have asked cinema goers to stop recording the featured movie.”
The MMFF 2018 Cinema Monitoring Enforcement started its activities on December 25, during the first day of showing of the official entries of the MMFF. It will continue monitoring until January 7, 2019.
Padilla said that in Baguio alone, there are 25 volunteer agents conducting cinema inspections during first showing of films. He related that there are a total of 672 volunteers nationwide- Metro Manila-147; Davao- 120; Cebu-110.
Padilla said a total of 29 malls in Metro Manila have already been monitored since the start of the showing of MMFF films.
