Bela Padilla’s FHM Philippines Cover Photo

The March issue of the Philippines most popular magazine, FHM was posted on the official Facebook page of FHM Philippines and after just one hour of posting it received complaint from different readers citing racism issue.

Bella Padilla, a close relative of Philippine’s action star Robin Padilla graced the cover of the magazine wearing pink bikini and was surrounded by black models with the caption “Bela Padilla Stepping Out of the Shadow.”

The posted front page cover of the magazine received enormous complaint from different readers especially in the social media sites Facebook and Twitter, a petition was even made at change.org to call the attention of the magazine publication.

After careful study and validation of complaint, Summit Media finally decided to pull out the cover photo posted on the internet and the March issue featuring Bela Padill and the dark-skinned model was pulled out and subject for change.

FHM Philippines has scrapped the cover that was tagged as "racist"by some netizens and has unveiled another cover for its March 2012 issue. FHM Philippines posted the new cover on the wall of their Facebook page on Wednesday, February 29.

The new cover features actress Bela Padilla standing alone on a rock, with a darkened beach as her background. The cover blurb was also changed to "Bela Padilla: 'I want to emerge with my own name.'" The previous cover which featured the actress with five models with dark skin tones had this blurb: “Bela Padilla: Stepping out of the Shadows."

The new cover still drew mixed reactions. There were netizens who said the new cover was better looking, but others said they liked the previous one better.

Summit Media issued a statement “When FHM hits the stands in March it will have a different cover. We deem this to be the most prudent move in the light of the confusion over the previous cover execution,” said a statement from Summit Media, the magazine’s publishers.

The magazine adds further that “We apologise and thank those who have raised their points. We apologise to Bela Padilla for any distress this may have caused her. In our pursuit to come up with edgier covers, we will strive to be more sensitive next time.” Summit Media stated.

Meanwhile the actress involved with the cover photo, Bela Padilla issued a statement through her official twitter account which states that ”

I’m so sorry to everyone who got offended. I hope all of you see the beauty of the cover and appreciate it.” Bela tweeted.

She added another tweet which states that “My cover is supposed to be about stepping out of MY shadows, inhibitions, fears, etc. And has nothing to do with race” Bela Padilla tweeted.