WITH digital platforms evolving faster than traditional regulation, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said instilling Filipino values is the best long-term safeguard against harmful online content.

At the Senate briefing for the 2026 budget of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), officials admitted the agency has no jurisdiction over streaming services like YouTube and Netflix, focusing instead on awareness campaigns for parents.

“With the widespread use of the internet, the MTRCB’s role in protecting young viewers from indecent content has decreased,” Cayetano noted.

He stressed that restrictions alone are insufficient. “It’s not more of censorship, but more of giving the young people the right ideas and information, and then they can make their own choices later on.”

Cayetano earlier urged the MTRCB, which he described as “guardian of the youth’s values,” to study ways of extending oversight to online platforms and to develop a research arm to preserve Filipino values in digital content.

To institutionalize this approach, he is pushing the Filipino Identity in Values Act, which seeks to establish a Commission on Filipino Values and an Inter-Faith Council to embed values formation, etiquette, and civic responsibility in schools, communities, and government.

“As the nation pursues economic prosperity and modernization, our development must be anchored on our cherished core values,” Cayetano emphasized.