We at the Altermidya Network stand behind our member, filmmaker JL Burgos, and the Burgos family in their fight against censorship and other state-sponsored attacks on free expression.

This is after the Movie Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) officially gave an X-rating to ‘Alipato at Muog,’ a documentary film directed by Burgos that sheds light on his brother Jonas’ state-enforced abduction. This means that the film is ‘not for public exhibition’ as the MTRCB says ‘it tends to undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their government and/or duly-constituted authorities.’

The result of the review came after National Security Spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said that the documentary is a ‘desperate attempt to revive an old case linking the military to the disappearance of Jonas Burgos’. It needs pointing out that no one has been held accountable, and that cases of forced disappearances have persisted after Jonas’ abduction 17 years ago.  

Jonas Burgos is one of the children of staunch press freedom heroes Joe Burgos and Edita Burgos. On April 28, 2007, he was abducted by armed men who introduced themselves as police while eating lunch at a restaurant in a Quezon City mall. This incident, along with the Burgos family’s search for Jonas and other cases of enforced disappearance, is depicted in the documentary.

The MTRCB’s X-rating of Alipato at Muog is detrimental to the truth the film reveals on the Jonas Burgos case. It prevents the public from accessing facts and first-hand narratives of victims of enforced disappearance.

With this rating, it seems the MTRCB also wants the stories of desaparecidos to also disappear.

Altermidya, as a network of alternative media outfits and progressive institutions and individuals, calls on the MTRCB to rescind the X-rating it gave Alipato at Muog and make it available for the general public. The truth of the matter is that the MTRCB wants to censor the truth that the military has performed condemnable acts that violate the rights and liberties of the common Filipino.

Alipato at Muog should be seen as a wake-up call for state forces to act right and be accountable. The truth should not become a victim of enforced disappearance. #