Nat’l law to increase entry barrier of Net cafés proposed
By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
October 28, 2009
To achieve its goal of bringing the local Internet café industry to a higher level, an advocacy group called I-Café Pilipinas (I-Café) is proposing the creation of a national law that will increase the entry barrier among Net café businesses in the Philippines.
Ed Zafra, chairman of I-Café, claimed that increasing the entry barrier of Net cafes will solve “many industry ills,” pertaining to quality of establishments, software piracy, IT security, user education, including the practice of right norms or etiquettes of users while inside a public net café.
“If we could only raise the entry barrier on Internet cafes like a drugstore, where an owner needs to become a licensed pharmacist first in order to operate the business, it will solve a lot of problems when it comes to licensed software, IP codes, and quality of Net café establishments, which are hard to implement in the national level,” Zafra said.
Zafra said although there are many talented IT graduates and employees in the country today, only a few are “licensed” IT professionals.
According to Zafra, local government units (LGUs) can be deputized to implement the law and regulate the booming industry.
Zafra said although Net café figures in the Philippines appear only about 12,000 to 15,000 in popular search engines like Yahoo!, he reported that there are around 30,000 to 40,000 Net cafes in the country today, both legal and illegal with average PC units of 10 to 400 units.
Functioning as a national advocacy body like Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) or Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), Zafra said I-Café is a group of partners and affiliates but no individual memberships. One of its missions is to serve as the guiding body for the creation of local government laws related to the Net café industry.
“I-Café Pilipinas was created to do collaborative work with the existing internet café associations on the different areas in the country and to motivate those internet café owners to form one establishment in areas where there are none,” he said, noting the organization will not function as a regulating body that would impose rules and fine its affiliates.
I-Café was formally launched last Oct. 21 at the National Computer Center (NCC) in the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman Quezon City, supported by the Commission on ICT (CICT). Its vision is to bring the advances of ICT to the remotest community in the Philippines with the Internet cafes as access points.
According to CICT chairman Ray Anthony-Roxas Chua, Net cafés in the Philippines can turn into community e-centers, a government project which is now being implemented to educate the public about the benefits of ICT.
Chua said by turning Net cafes into community e-centers, there is a lesser need in building new establishments since the infrastructure exists already and what is needed is for it to function as a learning center.
“The popularity of Internet cafes shows us the readiness of our people to use the Internet, and the CICT joins I-Café Pilipinas in looking for ways to improve our service for our people and in addressing the digital divide,” Chua said. “We are also looking forward to the further development of this national organization which would become the unified voice for the Internet café industry.”
hapijoyph wrote:
computerworld.com.ph/nat%E2%80%99l-law-t...-net-cafes-proposed/
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