Bagong Henerasyon party Representative Bernadette Herrera-Dy, vice chairman of the Philippines’ House committee on children’s welfare, has urged local executives to enforce regulatory classifications for video games that are sold in stores or played in gaming arcades, claiming that many of them promote violence or sexual promiscuity.
The Philippines uses the international Entertainment Software Rating Board to classify video games in the country, but she says that these ratings are not enforced because none of the games are “locally made.” Her call follows shootings in January that resulted in the death of nine people including two childrenin in Caloocan City and Cavite.
Herrera-Dy is pushing a proposal that would require local governments to impose classification standards for access to video games sold in stores, played in malls or at Internet cafes. She claims that a good starting point would be to use the classification ratings system currently in use by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board – it could be used as the same standard of classification for video and Internet games in the meantime, she claims.
She also said that she would push for gun control and violence prevention measures in conjunction with the push for a video game classification system for the country.
“In the absence of national laws that would ensure stringent gun licensing regulations and violence prevention measures, local government units may step in because they are capable of taking quick and determined steps to protect their constituents from a culture of violence that has slowly crept into our communities,” she said.
And while Herrera-Dy admits that there is no direct connection between video games and the recent spate of violent gun crimes, she also said that “this should not deter local and national legislative bodies to pass laws against video game violence, most of which are even more brutal and ruthless than those committed in real life.”
