ANSON-ROA URGES KINSE ANOS ADVERTISERS TO VOLUNTARILY WITHDRAW ADS FOR THE SAKE OF YOUTH March 24, 2004 Opposition senatorial candidate Boots Anson-Roa yesterday issued a strong appeal to owners of Destileria Limtuaco to withdraw its Kinse Anos print and broadcast advertisements while legal issues on the controversy are still being resolved by the proper courts. Anson-Roa aired the appeal as she stressed that she is willing to face the legal consequences of her decision last Tuesday to accompany fellow Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino candidate Alfredo Lim in the bid to deface and dismantle advertising billboards of the liquor manufacturer. Earlier, lawyers for Destileria Limtuaco threatened to file criminal charges against Lim for damaging a Kinse Anos billboard along Roxas blvd., in Manila. Reports have indicated that the company is also studying what charges to file against Anson-Roa who was with Lim when the latter attempted to deface another billboard at the corner of Timog Avenue and E. de los Santos Avenue in Quezon City. Appearing at the weekly Citio Fernandina Media Forum, Anson-Roa said the controversy can be laid to a temporary rest if Destileria would voluntarily withdraw the broadcast advertising spots and dismantle the existing Kinse Anos billboards while awaiting for the courts to decide on the cases brought up by the firm and its critics. "The owners of Destileria Limtuaco and their lawyer are my friends. But in this case, we have to rise above friendship and personal relations to protect our youth from being made objects of depravity and moral decadence," Anson-Roa, an advertising professor at the University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, stressed. She explained that the advertisers could not escape the fact that the advertisement was conceptualized to suggest sex with a fifteen-year-old girl in a bid to catch the attention of consumers. "The advertisement may be legal but far from being moral. Ang kinse anyos dito refers to the brandy but with our culture, iba ang intindi dito," the senatorial bet, who was a recipient of the Ten Outstanding women in the Nations Service Award, said.