Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Biz bureau starts Internet cafe monitoring
AFTER focusing on business registrations and issuance of business permits to various establishments in the city, the Davao City Business Bureau has now started the monitoring of internet cafes in the city that violate the rules of the bureau and the City Government.
Lawyer Jhopee Avanceña-Agustin, chief of the Business Bureau of Davao, said this in Tuesday's Kapehan sa Dabaw at Pizza Hut-SM Davao.
Agustin said the bureau has implemented a tight monitoring of Internet cafes since February 2008 regarding pornography, accreditation, and inspection for those who allow students to play online games during school hours.
"We have caught several Internet cafes who violated the city's rules, but so far wala pa naman kaming na-advised for closure. We only imposed fines to those who violated, hanggang second offense lang," Agustin said.
She said the bureau imposes fines of P1,000 for the first offense, P3,000 for the second offense, and finally closure of the internet cafe for the third offense.
"We usually go back to the Internet cafes who violated, and somehow, they comply naman," Agustin said.
He added: "We will have a continuous monitoring of these Internet cafes. But the conduct of our inspection is very limited. There are about 300 to 400 internet cafes in the city and we do not only inspect internet cafes that allow pornography viewing, but also we inspect their accreditation, and the requirements they have to comply like the lighting, the webcam, the cubicles, and others." (JGRS)
