Café Raids by OMB Not in Their 2008 Accomplishments

I browsed through the news articles posted at OMB’s website but I did not see the raids on cafés among the list of its accomplishments in 2008. The finding surprised because I personally witnessed one raid (they call it inspection) that they did in a city in Metro-Manila. In one of the news entitled OMB MARKS SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS IN 2008, it said “In 2008, the OMB conducted a total of 1,820 inspections and raids on Metro Manila’s shopping malls, illegal stalls, outlets and factories.” with no mention of internet cafés.

Another news article, OMB DOES A GREAT JOB, again did not mention the raids of internet cafés among the jobs they did in 2009. I may have missed seeing it among the news posted in their site so I urge that you go and look at the news yourself.

Assuming that I am correct in my observation, did OMB missed informing the newsmen about their accomplishments in raiding cafés last year or the agency intentionally did not include them. I could still remember that a TV station covered the raid I witnessed so why the mishap in reporting such incident.

I could only guess a possibility for the non-inclusion of café raids among OMB accomplishments. It could be that they went beyond what is allowed by law in the inspections they did on cafés. I re-read the Optical Media Act of 2003 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) but I did not find anything about checking whether the cafés use pirated software or not among OMB’s duties. It’s only checking if the optical media writers being used in CD-burning services are registered with them that I found covered by the said statute. I may be wrong though, I am not a lawyer.