A SIM card

A ranking congressman is making a last-ditch effort to convince the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to extend the deadline for SIM card registration as provided for under Republic Act (RA) No.11934, or the SIM Registration Act.

“This is an 11th-hour appeal to the DICT to stretch the SIM registration period by a month or two to avoid shutting out from digital and financial inclusion the legion of Filipinos who legitimately own possibly most of the 100 million-plus still unregistered SIMs at this point,” Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte said in a statement Sunday, April 23.

SIM stands for subscriber identity module. SIM cards are used to avail of network services on electronic devices such as mobile phones.

Villafuerte is one of the authors of RA No.11934, which set the SIM card registration window between Dec. 27, 2022 and April 26, 2023. The law, however, provides for an extension of up to 120 days.

Villafuerte, the majority leader of the powerful Commission on Appointments CA) in the House of Representatives, reminded the DICT that a non-extension of the four-month registration period would mean the automatic deactivation SIM numbers of subscribers who failed to beat the April 26 registration deadline.

The SIM registration turnout is reportedly under 40 percent.

During Holy Week, the Bicol solon backed the separate appeals of the three PTEs—Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom Inc. and DITO Telecommunity Corp.—for the DICT to extend the deadline to give their subscribers more time to register.

But the DICT later turned down such appeals, saying it was “sticking" with the April 26 deadline.

Villafuerte had earlier asked government to intensify the registration drive and more importantly, to fix the hitches such as stringent identification requirements, weak or no connectivity, and other digital challenges believed behind the low registry turnout.