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Monday, September 05, 2005
Internet cafés to be regulated
KORONADAL CITY -- Local officials here are planning to regulate the operations of Internet cafés in a bid to curb the growing number of young people who are being hooked to pornographic materials and the so-called cyber prostitution in the worldwide web.
Councilor Rebecca Bona said the City Government should regulate access of local Internet café users to Internet sites that promote prostitution or cybersex activities as well as terrorism, rebellion and even "Satanism."
"We will put the use of our Internet cafés in a proper perspective. One that would make it a primary source of positive information and not as an avenue for the deterioration of our society," she said.
Bona, who heads the City Council's committee on women and children, said there were reports that some local young people, especially students, have been getting access to cybersex activities through some Internet cafés.
"Something really has to be done to stop these kinds of activities before they draw our young people to prostitution," she said.
So far, City councilor Ellen Grace Subere has already signified to help draft an ordinance that would set some regulatory mechanisms for the Internet cafés.
The drafting of the ordinance is being assisted by the Internet Café Association of Koronadal (ICAK), which currently has at least 21 member-establishments.
Norman Millora, ICAK president, acknowledged that regulatory measures must be set by the city government to discourage cybersex or cyber prostitution.
He said that they have so far monitored that some Internet café users have been using web-based chatrooms as venues for pay-per-view lewd shows, some involving minors.
"The negotiations for the show were done through the chatrooms and the payment comes in the form of cellular phone cards or bank-to-bank transactions," Millora said in a press conference here Tuesday.
Millora said some Internet users are also using enclosed cubicles in the Internet cafés into "cyber hotels."
He said that instead of using the cubicles to have some privacy for Internet surfing or communication, some users would conduct their "private activities" inside them.
"They would transform the cubicles into hotel rooms and do whatever activity they want there," he said.
Millora said that to curb these activities, ICAK members have initially agreed to dismantle or make the structure of their cubicles more open to facilitate proper monitoring.
He said they are also currently evaluating some softwares that could filter pornographic and other "immoral" sites in the Internet. (Allen V. Estabillo)
(September 5, 2005 issue)
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