Blamed for many of society’s ills, has the local porn industry— government-sponsored in the past, digitally disseminated today—been looking at mainstream media for direction?

We’ve gone through various Movie and Television Review Classifications Board (MTRCB) chairpersons, inane moralist campaigns against peddlers of pornography on the streets and the Internet, and even a couple of totally uncalled for arrests—remember Mark Verzo of Boybastos.com, who the National Bureau of Investigation picked up for allegedly maintaining a porn site in September 2007—yet porn remains, remarkably, very easy to find. In fact, in several commercial centers I’m refusing to name here, porn actually finds us.

We don’t even know whom to thank for this: the heavens, for making sure we have freedom of choice; the pirates, for making sure we have a cheap, steady supply; or, the government, for being hopelessly inept. Whatever happened, for example, to this senator’s Anti-Computer Pornography Act and her so-called war on electronic smut? What about this Representative’s attempt to discourage the posting of lewd photographs and pornographic materials for the “protection of youths?” Unknown to him, the youth are probably the ones doing the posting.

Pornography, at least here in the Philippines, is what politicians love to bash publicly; because, it makes them appear righteous and moral. Never mind that the government they belong to ranks 131—alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen—in terms of corruption in a 2007 survey by Transparency International. As long as they wage war against this guilty pleasure, they are holy.

Of course, we all know better. Whatever it is that they’ve collectively done, in various places in the city, porn is pretty much in your face. In fact, it’s even patronized. According to the Internet Pornography Statistics report by Jerry Ropelato of toptenreviews.com, the Philippines ranked No. 8 alongside Canada and Taiwan for posting the largest revenues from pornography in 2006: about $1 billion a year.

Porn has become so incredibly mainstream that it may even have, unknown to our so-called guardians of morality, lost some of its appeal. There are websites that offer all sorts of pornographic material, 24/7, all for free; so, why buy? Anywhere pirated DVDs are sold, there, porn will be; so, why bother? We’ve all heard rhetoric against porn; so, why listen?

Shay Jordan, a native of the Philippines, is now an in-demand porn starlet under contract with Digital Playground. Melody Damayo, another popular Filipina porn star who goes by the name Mimi Miyagi, even filed as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state of Nevada on May 12, 2006.

“I have nothing left to hide, everybody has seen all of me already,” she was quoted as saying. And that, in a nutshell, is the state of pornography today. Everyone has seen everything that needs to be seen. Every fetish has been filmed; every angle, shot and taken; every fantasy, recreated, marketed, and fulfilled.

Today, Philippine porn is all about who’s in it; and, mainstream Philippine cinema may have been crucial in starting this trend.

Sex in Cinema

Back in the 1970s, sex genre films called bomba (explosion) first emerged on the silverscreen, and actresses like Alona Alegre, Rosanna Marquez, Rosanna Ortiz, and one-named wonders like Lorelei, Rizza and Yvonne, made people forget about the social and economic unrest at that time. Deo Villegas’ Uhaw (Thirst) was believed to have been the very first Filipino bomba film. Starring Lito Legaspi, Tito Galla, and Merle Fernandez, it claimed to have the boldest and most daring story ever written for Pogi comics.

In movie theaters in Quiapo, however, particularly in the evening, people were being introduced to the singit, i.e. segments kept from the censors that were inserted back into the films.
This may have been Philippine porn’s first baby steps.

According to Rolando B. Tolentino, an educator who wrote Introducing the PP Films, the bomba film (1970 to Sept. 1972) later became known as the bold film (1974 to 1976), the main characteristic of which was the exploitation of the wet look: women running around, for example, in a wet chemise. Former Miss Universe Gloria Diaz, who starred in Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa (The Most Beautiful Animal on the Face of the Earth) in 1974, was credited for having started this fad. This trend also included women bathing, swimming, being raped, or having sex, in a body of water.

The daring stage of the bold film occurred from 1976 to 1982, which, according to Tolentino, “showed young women, Lolita-like in exuding sexuality in young bodies.” A scene from the 1980 film Bomba Star, for example, had Alma Moreno, who played a student, running half-naked on the streets while being chased by her mother. Dina Bonnevie appeared in the movie Katorse (14), Cherie Gil in Problem Child, and Amy Austria in Nang Bumuka ang Sampaguita (When the Sampaguita Blossomed), all in the same year. The titles said it all.

Politics notwithstanding, this era coincided with the government’s campaign to lower the voting age. At this point, one might ask if the mainstream movie industry reflects society’s changing sexual tastes, or does it help create it?
From 1983 to1986, the genre took on a different name: FF for fighting fish. Backed by government, labeled Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, and shown uncensored at the Film Palace, actresses like Ana Marie Gutierrez, Maria Isabel Lopez, and Stella Strada took it all off in the name of art. Similar to the singit inserts of the bomba period, however, segments kept from the censors during this era had actual sexual penetration. Known as, what else, pene films, the industry made household names out of the soft drink beauties: Sarsi Emmanuel, Coca Nicolas, and Pepsi Paloma; elite beauties: Lampel Cojuangco, Lala Montelibano, Claudia Zobel, and Farida Yulo; and, the hard drink beauties: Brandy Ayala and Chivas Regala. Many of these girls were Amerasian.

All sorts of real scandals involving the private lives of people, famous or not, have become all the rage. Even the standards of what is considered scandalous have been raised even higher. No one is immune. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is taboo.

Sabik, which starred Joy Sumilang, Maureen Mauricio, and George Estregan—the reputed king of the genre—was said to have been the best pene film ever made.

Some of these movies may have inspired the trend in Philippine pornography today: famous people having sex.

The FF film eventually became ST, or sex-trip, taking in the vernacular of the period between 1986 to 1992, with Rita Avila, Gretchen Barreto, and Christine Gonzalez opening up the demand for educated, middle class girls.
From 1992 to 1998, ST became TT, for titillating films. Split-second frontal nudity was the name of the game and women like Alma Concepcion, Rita Magdalena, and Rosanna Roces led the pack in pito-pito style movies—those that took only seven days to film and another seven to process.

Tolentino called the seventh morphing of the bomba, from 1998 to the present, PP films, for private parts, which have become the main cinematic focus. Joyce Jimenez, Patricia Javier, Ina Raymundo, and Klaudia Koronel were the stars of the period. Movies now pushed the envelope for graphic sex even further.

The public taste for local women in porn today, in fact, now includes the broad spectrum promoted by the local mainstream cinema through the years: famous, young, middle class, educated, light-skinned, dark-skinned, students, exotic dancers, real-life, and the like.

Porn Free

In 2003, however, a video emerged showing three local women having sex with their boyfriends. The women had no idea they were being filmed. The video came from Dumaguete City. This unfortunate scandal started a trend in voyeuristic, reality-type, low-budget pornography, and every town, municipality, and city began to have their own “real, shocking” versions.
Then, another video called the La Salle Scandal became an instant hit. Now, we don’t know whether the young man, and two women, in the film were actually from the University, but according to Eric S. Caruncho, in his article “Manila Scandal,” published by PlanetPhilippines.com, the video was simply a creative repackaging of an old film called the Makati Scandal.
Whatever it is, the previously-snubbed, underground homegrown porn industry (largely because of unknown, fresh-off-the-street actors) finally made its grand debut, with people demanding for X-rated local VCDs and DVDs, precisely because of their unknown, fresh-off-the-street actors. To create Philippine porn, one just has to satisfy a very simple formula: voyeurism.
With the advent of technology, cell phones, and computers, all sorts of real scandals involving the private lives of people, famous or not, have become all the rage. Even the standards of what is considered scandalous have been raised even higher. No one is immune. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is taboo.
Have we become terribly desensitized? Commercial video outlets now sell original soft core VCDs and DVDs catering to all kinds of persuasions: male, female, gay, straight, fetishist.
Or, are we celebrating our liberties? In an article called “Pumped on Porn,” published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Filipino sex expert Jose Florante Leyson, chairman of the American College of Clinical Sexologists for Licensure in New Jersey, noted that the anti-smut side of a debate is weak, because “pornography is often presented as a form of sexual liberation.”
There are signs of this freedom: in commercial centers, local vendors say that porn outsells Hollywood blockbusters any day. Anyone with a cell phone can, in fact, create, or star in, a porn film—porn as the great equalizer, if you will. It certainly looks like the local porn industry, underground as it may still be, is here to stay.
The church, people in government, or everyone who thinks issues like institutionalized corruption must take a backseat to pornography, can campaign all they want, but people know exactly where to go to get their porn fix. In Quiapo, for example, there is this one-level shanty mall, which is ground zero for porn videos—every perversion one can think of.
But you don’t even have to go that far.
Of course, the Philippine movie industry has given us more than just the bomba. In fact, sex in Philippine cinema is also credited with portraying, and rebelling against, the social ills of a particular period. That’s for another feature.
There is also a Pandora’s Box of issues all related to pornography. Does it affect society? Does it objectify people? Does porn help people go through bad economic times? What is its relation to politics? What are its psychological effects? Does it encourage deviant sexual behavior? How does one define “deviant”?
I will deal with none of that now. There will always be issues surrounding porn, clamors and rallies against it, laws to define it. The porn referred to in this essay is the kind that doesn’t violate anyone’s rights (paid actors knowingly perform the stunts), is commercially made for a profit (just like mainstream cinema), and doesn’t involve the exploitation of anyone, especially children. Whatever pornography represents, however, users are concerned with only one point.

Ultimately, we decide.