The term “Online Streaming Platforms”, otherwise known as Over The Top Content, On-Demand Streaming Services, and etc., refers to an internet service intended to provide online curated content platforms that everyone can able to stream their content, or to download them to watch it offline.
The Senate Bill no. 2805, otherwise known as the MTRCB Act, as sponsored by Senator Robin Padilla, stated that “the Board should be authorized to regulate video content on streaming platforms to maintain the standards of decency and morality expected by Filipinos, while he also emphasized that the measure will extend the MTRCB’s mandate to cover streaming sites.”
For Paid VOD services, the MTRCB (a.k.a. “the board”) shall order a reclassification once after screening was made, if necessary. The passage of this senate bill, made the board to regulate streaming contents to “address issues of obscenity, immorality, and senseless violence in the digital platforms”, in a press message from the Senate.
Meanwhile, the Directors Guild of the Philippines (DGPI), in its statement last June 4, 2025, strongly opposed the Senate Bill, over the extension of censorship jurisdiction into VOD services, because it would further destroy the rights of it’s content creators’ rights to free expression and viewers’ rights to free access to expression, as well as it could infringe the industry in local films, while there is no need to create this “redundant” new law like the SB No. 2805.
PHCA CID: PHCA-2025H1-8863
