The Philippine government denounced the "Tekken 7" new playable character, Josie Rizal, as one of the PS4 game fighters recently reported. Last Thursday, April 9, news popped online that the Philippine cultural sector didn't acknowledge the Filipino essence to the character per se.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), one of the policy making, coordinating and grants giving body to culture and the arts in the Philippines, announced that they don't recognize the fact that the game developer included this new female Filipino fighter in the gameplay wherein it doesn't even possess any of the Filipino traits and not even close to the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, who was noted to be its inspiration.

Felipe De Leon, Jr. said in a statement, "While the Commission is still studying what actions it may take on the issue of the name and image of Dr. Jose Rizal being dragged into this, we may safely say that NCCA has not issued any statement on the matter."

Though the said body hasn't mentioned their final say about "Tekken 7's" move, but for sure, they will be taking actions particularly on the legal aspects. However, there were also reports stating that they are now calling the attention of the creator of Josie Rizal for the gameplay based from the statements of Dr. Leodenito Cañete, a Visayan coordinator of the same cultural body.

He emphasized that there is a big misrepresentation to the Filipinos particularly on the country's national hero. If this character is supposedly the inspiration of the identity of the new female fighter, there should be at least characteristics in which the fighter possesses. But he also recognized the fact that with the Philippines' current standing to the world, he can't deny that other countries will include Philippines to their inspiration for the game, by saying, "It's hard for us to prevent other countries from making characters like this because Philippines is very popular around the world."

This was also supported by the statements given by Adonis Durado, another coordinator, saying, "The problem with Josie Rizal's character is too obvious: it doesn't have any trace of Filipino-ness neither in her physical attributes nor in her outfit ... If her fighting style is supposedly eskrima, where are the arnis sticks? So the Filipino-inspired name is simply a token."

On the other hand, there has been no word or response from the creators themselves to the stand of the Philippine government on this matter. But the gamers also reacted with the NCCA's statement by citing that there are other issues faced by the country. So, instead of having this targeted why not the other much more important matters to attend to.

With these being said, a lot of people are now curious to the possible response of Katsuhiro Harada, game director for this game franchise to the NCCA's statements. Amid these issues, what the fans should keep doing is to be updated for the upcoming Bandai Namco's announcements for the "Tekken 7" PS4 gameplay updates later on.