HOTSPOT
The SIM card registration law’s implementing rules and regulations have been released, and the Department of Information Communication Technology (DICT) has wasted no time pressing the public and telcos to immediately register.
Perhaps the DICT head and the President should seriously consider the following suggestions to expedite the first few hundreds of thousands of registrations for SIM cards in phones and other SIM-dependent devices.
First, require as mandatory to the highly-disciplined and highly-organized agencies of government to register their own personal and official SIM cards. I’m referring to officers, gentlemen and members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Corrections, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Fire Protection, and all who wear the uniform.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President could order all soldiers, police and all law enforcers to register immediately and without any delay. There should be no exceptions, including all staff and officers of the Intelligence Service of the AFP.
The registration of SIM cards of these law enforcers would solve or abet many problems regarding the abuses of power, including harassment and illegal surveillance of ordinary citizens.
Second, the President himself and members of his family up to third degree of consanguinity and all their staff and agents. The President could also include all private agencies providing his family any services.
Third, the President’s official family, namely members of the Cabinet as well as officials up to bureau chief level, their families up to third degree of consanguinity and affinity, and the private agencies used or contracted personally or officially by these high-ranking public officials.
Special mention here for the entire DICT, DILG and DND officialdom which are tasked to implement the law. They should be among the first to abide by the law. All their personal and official SIM cards should be registered.
Fourth, the President should also ask both Houses of Congress to require their members, families of members up to third degree of consanguinity, their national staff and district staff, their private agencies, including security and intelligence staff, to immediately register all their SIM cards.
If the highest government officials and law enforces are the first to register, they would be the first to experience and assess the registration process and the law’s overall and specific implementation phases. Besides, they are highly-organized and can easily add mandatory SIM registration as a requirement for the release of allowances, salaries and benefits.
Local government units at the provincial, municipal and city levels, from chief executive, staff and local lawmakers should also be among the first to register all their SIM cards. Ditto for their private agents whose tasks have been to gather citizen phone numbers and to send them messages. They would then be able to assess how easy or difficult the rollout could be.
Another set of highly-organized and highly-disciplined organizations that the President should consider requiring immediate registration are the digital marketing agencies, all value added service providers that record or send messages to citizens’ numbers, all agencies of government that have databases of citizen numbers. Digital marketing agencies contracted by government at the national and local levels should also be prioritized. The Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Quarantine and airport staff come to mind.
Doing these would be a show of goodwill and good faith to the public. More importantly, this will help rid the government of scalawags. Besides, the people of the Philippines pay for their official SIM cards, prepaid phone loads and postpaid subscriptions, apart from their salaries and allowances. Taxpayers pay billions for these telecommunications and ICT services.
We cannot stress enough that government officials and agencies should register not just the SIM cards of phones, but also of devices that use SIM cards including but not limited to prepaid and postpaid mobile broadband devices such as modems and mobile routers, tablets, and mass messaging software.
How quickly and slowly offices and officials of government would be able to register all their SIM cards would depend on the President’s political will, and government’s organizational discipline. I think there’s no doubt that the AFP, PNP, the cabinet portfolio positions, and the two Houses of Congress would be among the most organized and most disciplined, and so the public would expect that they won’t complain or drag their feet.
Yes, law enforcers first, the public next.