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From R-18 to R-16: Director Chris Martinez explains why ‘Mga Batang Poz’ is for young people

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Edo Daria

<p>&quot;I want the young people to watch it,&quot; this is the honest statement of the Mga Batang Poz director Chris Martinez at the press conference last Wednesday, July 24. Dubbed as an advocacy project of iWant, the web series will tell the stories of four young people living with HIV and struggling with the stigma. </p><div><a href="https://push.abs-cbn.com/2019/3/15/fresh-scoops/awra-briguela-mark-neumann-play-persons-living-wi-204451"><u>READ: Awra Briguela, Mark Neumann play persons living with HIV in an iWant original series, ‘Mga Batang Poz’</u></a></div><p>Since the series will talk about sensitive topics like &#x27;MSM (men having sex with men)&#x27; and &#x27;sexual abuse&#x27;, iWant Programming Head Richard Reynante told the press that this series supposed to be R-18, but they decided later on for it to be lowered to R-16 to fulfill its cause of educating young adults.</p><p>&quot;When we saw the statistics ng affected nito (HIV epidemic) ay 15 (year olds) and younger, parang we felt that we are doing a great disservice to the people kung hindi mae-educate ang kabataan. </p><p>&quot;As far as we know, <em>ang iniisip natin napaka delikado para sa mga bata,</em> but I think we are under-estimating them. <em>Parang mas marami pa silang nalalaman kaysa sa iniisip natin na nalalaman nila. So binabaan namin siya sa </em>R-16,&quot; Reynante explained. </p><p>&quot;Actually<em> wala naman</em> censorship when it comes to online<em>, pero sa amin na iyon mismo - iniingatan namin na magkaroon ng</em> backlash,<em> kasi baka mamaya hindi kayang sakyan ng mga mas bata pa yung ganong ka-sensitibong topic, kaya dapat mayroon kaming tinitignan na</em> standards, so it&#x27;s going out now at R-16,&quot; he added. </p><div> </div><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B0SWaV6Arhd/" data-instgrm-version="12" style="background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:calc(100% - 2px)"><div style="padding:16px"><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;align-items:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:40px;margin-right:14px;width:40px"> </div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:100px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:60px"> </div></div></div><div style="padding:19% 0"> </div><div style="display:block;height:50px;margin:0 auto 12px;width:50px"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B0SWaV6Arhd/" style="background:#FFFFFF;line-height:0;padding:0 0;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;width:100%" target="_blank"><svg height="50px" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 60 60" width="50px" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd" stroke="none" stroke-width="1"><g fill="#000000" transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 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style="padding:12.5% 0"> </div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;margin-bottom:14px;align-items:center"><div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(0px) translateY(7px)"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;height:12.5px;transform:rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px);width:12.5px;flex-grow:0;margin-right:14px;margin-left:2px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(9px) translateY(-18px)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:8px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:20px;width:20px"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:2px solid transparent;border-left:6px solid #f4f4f4;border-bottom:2px solid transparent;transform:translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:auto"><div style="width:0px;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-right:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(16px)"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;flex-grow:0;height:12px;width:16px;transform:translateY(-4px)"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-left:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(-4px) translateX(8px)"> </div></div></div><div style="margin:8px 0 0 0;padding:0 4px"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B0SWaV6Arhd/" style="color:#000;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px;text-decoration:none;word-wrap:break-word" target="_blank">Happening now! &#x27;Mga Batang Poz&#x27; presscon. ❤️ #MgaBatangPozPresscon #NASAiWantYAN</a></div><p style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:8px;overflow:hidden;padding:8px 0 7px;text-align:center;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/iwantofficial/" style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px" target="_blank"> iWant</a> (@iwantofficial) on <time dateTime="2019-07-24T04:50:54+00:00" style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px">Jul 23, 2019 at 9:50pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote><script async="" src="~//www.instagram.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script><div> </div><p>Direk Chris also defended the decision to make the series available to young people. He said that its goal is to educate the actual age-group that&#x27;s affected by the HIV epidemic.</p><p>&quot;To be honest, I want the young people to watch it... This is not an adult film na in disguise of advocacy. This is for the teens, this is made for the young people.</p><p>&quot;<em>Hindi ito</em> something na malaswa or something <em>na dapat ikahiya na panoorin...</em> Because this is really done for our youth. This is to save them, to inform them, to make them aware of what&#x27;s happening around them,&quot; the 2013 Palanca Awardee continued.</p><p>Awra Briguela, Mark Neumann, Paolo Gumabao, and Fino Herrera, will play the roles of the four main characters who acquired the HIV through unfortunate circumstances. Mga Batang Poz series will be available on iWant for free starting July 26.</p><div> </div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">“This is made for the youth, to save the youth,” Direk Chris said. <a href="https://t.co/pGKueNHEDh">pic.twitter.com/pGKueNHEDh</a></p>— PUSH ALERTS (@Push_Alerts) <a href="https://twitter.com/Push_Alerts/status/1153896410493796353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2019</a></blockquote><script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><div> </div><div><a href="https://push.abs-cbn.com/2019/7/13/fresh-scoops/watch-awra-briguela-and-mark-neumann-are-hiv-posi-211703"><u>READ:  Awra Briguela and Mark Neumann are HIV positive in first ‘Mga Batang Poz’ trailer</u></a></div><p>Meanwhile, it was also announced during the press conference that Mga Batang Poz&#x27;s movie and director&#x27;s cut version will be screened at Cinemalaya 2019 Exhibitions Premiere. </p>

‘Mga Batang Poz’ director Chris Martinez explaines why he wants teenagers to watch his advocacy series.