Lim eyes ban on ‘violent’ video arcade games

By: Itchie G. Cabayan - Journal on-line

MANILA Mayor Alfredo Lim yesterday ordered a study on banning violent video games in arcades and amusement centers, particularly among minors.

The directive came after the Philippine Alliance Against Pornography met with Lim to discuss the dangers being posed by these games on children’s behavior.

Former Movie and Television Review and Classification Board chairman Henrietta Mendez, PAAG president, was alarmed that unlike movies and television shows, video games are even more dangerous because kids can play them without proper guidance.

“The more people you hit, the higher your score will be and you are even rewarded for it,” she told Lim.

For his part, Lim directed his chief of staff Ric de Guzman to work out possible solutions to the problem either by banning violent games from being accessed by minors or prohibiting children from the use of gaming machines that promote too much violence.

He noted that being very interactive, playing violent video games, especially when done repeatedly, may cause the children to develop violent tendencies.

Lim also took notice of reports made by the PAAG that these games encourage players to be good at hitting or killing a computer-generated enemies with virtual guns by shooting at his vital parts.

To add more teeth to the regulation of video games in the city, Lim said he will coordinate with Vice Mayor and council presiding officer Isko Moreno in crafting an ordinance for this purpose.

As early as last July, Lim prohibited the playing of computer games during school hours particularly near public schools, or from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., which are the usual class hours in the elementary and secondary level.

The mayor’s action then was in response to the complaints of parents and teachers, who said that a good number of such shops encourage skipping of classes among high school students by allowing them to play computer games at any time of the day.

Survey says most young Pinoys use Web for gaming, Friendster

By Lawrence Casiraya - INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines -- Gaming and social networking have emerged as primary reasons why Filipinos aged 25 and below use the Internet, according to a recent survey by DigitalFilipino.com.

A survey of 375 respondents, mostly from Metro Manila, also showed that majority (more than 70 percent) of gamers play in Internet cafes even though they have Internet connections at home.

DigitalFilipino.com started its annual Internet user survey in 2002. Almost 90 percent of respondents in this year's survey are aged 25 or below.

In previous surveys, respondents cited research and e-mail as main reasons why they go online. Now, respondents still mention research as the main reason but next comes gaming, entertainment and logging on to social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace.

“Gaming as a reason to go online did not exist before, even in last year's survey," said Jannette Toral who runs DigitalFilipino.com. "Some users even use Friendster as their email platform because all their friends use it as well."

Most of the respondents spend 12 to 24 hours a week surfing the Web. While people spend more time online, monthly spending has gone down to about P350 per month from P1,000 per month in 2002.

This may indicate that most users spend more time playing games or checking on their Friendster profiles at Internet cafes. "This can also mean that Internet fees have gone down," Toral said.