Banning Koreanovelas is misguided protectionism

SEN. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada admitted that he is not a fan of Koreanovelas, and that he even thought of banning them. He later on retracted because of the evident backlash.

His beef stems from the fact that he blames these shows, or rather, the addiction of many Filipinos for them, as causing the unemployment of Filipino actors.

His theory is that because the networks would rather import Korean soap operas, and even those from other countries like Thailand, and just dub these in the local language, that Filipino actors are being denied work simply because there is now less push to produce local soaps.

This line of argument reeks of protectionism, and is in fact the same approach that we take in protecting local farmers from the onslaught of imported agricultural products such as sugar and onions. And we could, in fact, also face…