Minors soon banned from Internet Cafes

Minors will be banned inside internet cafes during school days following a proposed amendment in the city’s Children’s Welfare Code.

On Tuesday, the Committee on Women, Children, and Family Relations chaired by Richlyn Justol-Baguilod, passed on second reading the amendments of the said code that covers among its provisions the allowable hours for minors to use internet cafes for gaming.

“We suggested to the City Council that our minors will be prohibited for internet gaming in cafes during school days. In our existing ordinance, our provisions only cover certain hours in a day. But in this amendment, we would like to have it any time of the day during school days,” Justol said in an interview.

“We can allow them for research purposes but not for gaming but we still have to follow the curfew hours for minors. There is also an exemption during holidays,” Justol added.

For the internet cafe operators, Justol said, based on the existing ordinance, they are mandated to check the ID to determine if their customers are minors or not.

Justol said the proposed penalties for first offense is at P2,500, second offense is P3,500 and P5,000 for third offense plus cancellation of business permits.

“We will involve the Barangay officials through the Barangay Council for the Protection of Children in monitoring the internet cafes. We would also ask the help of other barangay officials especially those in the peace and order sector to ensure the implementation of these proposed provisions,” she said.

“On my experience as a former Barangay official, we created a task force that will go around the internet cafes in the barangays and report it to the law enforcers,” she added.

Meanwhile, Justol also added that initially, the group of internet cafe owners in the city were not favorable to the said new provisions but they agreed eventually.

“During our previous committee hearing together with the ICAD or the Internet Cafe Association of Davao, most of the internet cafe owners were not amenable to these required provisions but we have settled it already,” the Councilor said.

The proposed amendments to the Children’s Welfare Code of the City is set to be passed on third and final reading next week.