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Don't look now, but the seven-month registration window for subscriber identity module or SIM cards is finally over. As such, Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte is prodding law enforcement agencies to crack down harder on violators of the SIM Registration Act as well as the Cybercrime Prevention Act. Doing so would spare owners of mobile phones and other mobile communication devices from being swindled by text scammers and others engaged in phone-based fraud, Villafuerte said. “Now that the SIM registration period is over, it is time for our authorities to prove their true mettle as law enforcers by taking down violators of this new law plus the related 2012 law penalizing cybercrimes to finally stop nefarious groups and individuals," he said. Villafuerte was one of the authors of Republic Act (RA) No.11934, or the SIM Registration Act. The law mandated the registration of SIM cards from Dec. 27, 2022 to July 25, 2023. "Our authorities need to double down on their anti-cybercrime efforts as President [Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos [Jr.], during the joint anniversary celebration of the National Security Council (NSC) and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) last week, added cyber attacks to the list of national security threats to the Philippines," stressed the veteran solon. Villafuerte also urged the three public telecommunications entities (PTEs)—Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom Inc. and Dito Telecommunity Corp.—along with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to intensity their respective information drives to acquaint the public with the new schemes cooked up by cybercrime syndicates. “These scammers need to be flushed out once and for all," the former Camarines Sur governor said.