Playing in the virtual battlefield of violence: Is the Philippine government concerned?: A comprehensive analysis of the applicability in the Philippines of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown V. Entertainment Merchants Association invalidating the prohibition of the direct sale and rental of violent video games to minors

• Main Authors: Abes, Charmaine A., Noa, Monique Camille Z.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Commercial Law
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/17788
• Institution: De La Salle University

If people think violent video games like Counter Strike or DotA provide mere entertainment to the children, then they may not be recognizing the reality in the situation. While children are playing in the virtual battlefield, the violence depicted by these video games are polluting their psyche, enabling them to become aggressive and execute violent acts. Meanwhile the Philippine government has not acted sufficiently, thus the question may be raised if the State is concerned with the serious issues about these violent video games. This study begun with the introduction of the ruling of the United States (US) Supreme Court in a case which invalidated a law that involves imposing regulation on the exposure of violent video games to children based on applicable laws of the United States. The main issue that was discussed and answered in this study was the adoptability of the said US Supreme Court ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court in case the validity of the same law, if passed in the Philippines, is questioned based on Philippine laws. The researchers had to determine in the first place if the law in question is valid under Philippine law and jurisprudence. Since the US Supreme Court ruling invalidated the said law because it is unconstitutional, the researchers analyzed if it would also be unconstitutional under Philippine law by extracting the applicable constitutional provisions and analyzing them. The issue in this study also involved conflicting rights of a person under the law. To be able to harmonize these rights, the researchers first gathered these rights and did an analysis on every right. Then, the balancing of rights was done to determine the prevailing right. After doing the study, the researchers found out that under the Philippine law, the law in question is valid and constitutional, as opposed to the decision of the US Supreme Court. If this is the case, then there is indeed a room for regulating the exposure of Filipino children to violent video games.