Tiongson admitted that he had reservations on the installation of Dolphy with the prestigious award. Tiongson wrote: “I believed that the two icons he created for film and TV – the screaming gay and the happy-go-lucky poor man – have, in the majority of his movies, equated gayness with abnormality and mindless frivolity on the one hand, and romanticized or deodorized poverty on the other.”
Tiongson expressed reservations about Dolphy receiving a prestigious award due to his concerns that the actor's portrayals of gay characters and impoverished individuals in many of his films perpetuated negative stereotypes.