New MTRCB panel to look into Jan-Jan’s case

Movie and Television Review and Classification Board chairperson Grace Poe Llamanzares will appoint new members of the Hearing and Adjudication Committee looking into the controversy involving Willie Revillame after TV5 questioned the impartiality of the panel’s members.

Llamanzares said she will name new members to decide on the case of six-year-old Jan-Jan Suan, whose dance number in “Willing Willie” in the March 12 episode again put Revillame on a hot seat.

Llamanzares vowed that the Board will work on the swift resolution of the case which “will be guided by established facts and the law.”

‘Even as I affirm the integrity of the Members of the Hearing and Adjudication Committee, I regretfully accept their voluntary inhibition in order to dispel any doubt as to their impartiality. Effective immediately, a new Hearing and Adjudication Committee is hereby constituted to determine the guilt or innocence of the respondents in this case. The change in the composition of the committee is to assure the public that the Board will only be guided by established facts and the law in the disposition of this case. This is also to avoid any attempt to further delay the expeditious resolution of the case,” she said in a statement.

TV5 questioned the partiality of former members Atty. Eric Mallonga, Leah Navarro, and the committee’s chairperson lawyer Eugenio Villareal.

It claimed that Villareal’s wife is employed by ABS-CBN, while Mallonga heads ABS-CBN’s Bantay Bata. It added that Leah Navarro already prejudged the case since she said Revillame did wrong in her posts on the Internet.

TV5 also questioned the authority of MTRCB to hear the alleged child abuse case because “child abuse” is criminal in nature and should be heard by competent courts.

The channel insisted that Jan-Jan’s macho dance routine was not obscene or sexually suggestive.

Late Friday, Revillame announced that he is taking a two-week break starting yesterday because of the furor.

“I will take a leave... starting today. Tomorrow, we will just show taped (old) episodes. We will be gone for two weeks... but when we come back, there will be new hope,” he told his show’s audience.