MANILA : The Philippines will get its own edition of Playboy magazine -- only without the nudity that made the US version famous, the editor-in-chief of the local edition said Thursday.

The Philippine edition will be launched on April 2 as a "mature lifestyle magazine", said veteran journalist Beting Laygo Dolor.

While the magazine will offer pictorials of beautiful women, it will not include nudity. "It will be tamer than the US edition but not as tame as the Indonesian edition," Lagyo Dolor said in a television interview.

He said it would be aimed at a more mature, affluent readership than "lad magazines" such as FHM and Maxim which already have Philippine editions.

It will be the 25th international edition of the US-based magazine which was launched more than 50 years ago.

The local edition will have serious articles and fiction by some of the country's best-known writers but will also include such staples as a "playmate of the month", Lagyo Dolor said

Movies and publications showing nudity have run into strong opposition in the conservative, largely Roman Catholic Philippines with watchdog groups sometimes filing criminal charges against those who distribute such materials.

- AFP/sf