Rep. Alfred Vargas In a privilege speech on Monday, February 15, Vargas decried the rampant incidence of movie piracy in the Philippines as he admitted that cases of copyright violations and outright online theft have victimized producers of films that participated in the recently-concluded 2020 Metro Manila Film Festival. Vargas produced the film “Tagpuan”, a romance drama, in which he starred in as leading man. The movie won third best film among ten entries to the MMFF. Speaking based on his experience, the three-term lawmaker lamented that movie piracy in the country had gone “from bad to worse”, adding that the crime has endangered “the survival of the industry and the livelihood of thousands of movie workers.”