CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines – In a move to free the province from reading materials that are sexually provocative, Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale last Monday, Aug. 15 filed a proposed ordinance that seeks to prohibit the sale, distribution, possession, or exhibition of tabloids and such other similar printed and reading materials containing immoral or indecent pictures, acts/activities, or writings that are sexually-provocative.

The Provincial Board immediately took up for first reading during their session Monday the proposed ordinance for the said ordinance filed by Magpale, who co-chairs the Provincial Women’s Commission (PWC). The proposed ordinance, once approved after deliberation and public hearing, will be known as “Anti-Tabloid Ordinance of 2011.”

The Cebu City Anti-Indecency Board earlier filed a criminal complaint against two Cebuano-language tabloids for running fiction stories that the board said used “obscene, indecent and sexually suggestive language.”

Magpale said the PWC had previously called the attention of Cebu’s two local tabloids, Banat News and Superbalita, when she was still a Provincial Board member.

In 2009, the PWC sent letters to the publishers to warn them about the tabloids’ “explicit” contents but Magpale said the feedback was that they believed there was nothing wrong with their content.

In filing the proposed ordinance, Magpale said it is the policy of Province of Cebu to “promote, protect, and enhance public decency and morality within the Cebuano community.”

She said, “In pursuit of such policy, any and all written or printed reading whose contents destroy or tend to destroy any sense of public decency and morals shall not be countenanced.”