Playboy magazine USA officially launched its local version in the Philippines early this month of April 2008 with a grand opening held in a classy Hotel in Metro Manila. The magazine was launched amid oppositions from the church and the moralist members of society. The group has warned that the magazine would badly affect the moral fiber of Philippine society.
The group composed of women organization, church officials and the anti-pornography advocates, criticized the magazine for its propensity for exploiting and treating young women as commodity for displaying their nude bodies in an explicit form of sexploitation. They said that the magazine is a pornographic material which is more than enough to poison the minds of the people.
The local media working group of Playboy magazine clarified at the onset that the local version is much different from that of the US version. According to them, they would be more circumspect not to publish nudity and daring photographs. Unlike in the US where models pose barely naked, the magazine assured that models will be conservatively covered to suit to the sensitivity of the locals. But the moralists vow to resist and destroy the Playboy’s new found niche in the Philippines.