Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte

With hardly 40 percent of the country’s subscriber identity module or (SIM) cards registered, Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte said its time for authorities to think about the extension provision in Republic Act (RA) No.11934 or the SIM Registration Act.

“It is time for the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) and NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) to seriously consider extending the registration period for, say, a month or two," Villafuerte said in a statement.

Citing official figures, he said that a mere 39.41 percent of the estimated 168.977 million SIMs nationwide have been registered with public telecommunications entities (PTEs).

He said the deadline for registration under the law is April 26, 2023. Registration for SIM cards began on Dec. 27, 2022.

Villafuerte, majority leader of the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA), noted that Section 4 of RA No.11934 requires the registration of all SIMs by their end-users as a pre-requisite to the activation or continued use of these numbers.

He said Section 4 of the law states that “All existing SIMs subscribers shall register the same with their respective PTEs within one hundred eighty (180) days from the effectivity of this Act. The DICT may extend registration for a period not exceeding one hundred twenty (120) days.”

The NTC website reported that as of April 11, or barely two weeks before the deadline,  an aggregate of 66.21 million SIM cards have been  registered with the three PTEs, which is just 39.41 percent of the estimated 168.977 million SIMs nationwide.

A total of 32.93 million SIM card owners have signed up with Smart Communications Inc., another 28.33 million with Globe Telecom Inc., and 4.94 million more with DITO Telecommunity Corp.

Two of these PTEs—Globe and Smart—have sought an extension of the registration period because of the low turnout of registrants, saying that one stumbling block to maximizing the list-up is the lack by many subscribers of the needed identification requirement, such as the Philippine Identification System  (PhilSys) ID, Driver’s License or Passport, for them to list up their SIMs with their respective PTEs.

Villafuerte said the government should exert its best efforts to have as many SIM cards registered as possible, considering that a highly successful registration drive would give a tremendous boost to the government's campaign against cybercrime, notably mobile phone-based fraud like text scams and identity theft leading to unauthorized online payments and bank withdrawals.

“A highly successful registration of SIMs is much desired, as such will  make it  easier for the authorities or PTEs to trace persons behind text scams and hold them accountable for breach of privacy along with mobile phone-based fraud and other punishable offenses they have been able to perpetrate by using unknown or unregistered celfone numbers,” he explained.