More than 95 million Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards have been registered as of May 10, and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan Uy said government is hopeful it will reach its target of more than 100 million SIMs being registered by July.
Uy, in a briefing in Malacanang after a Cabinet sectoral meeting with President Marcos Jr. yesterda, admitted the extension of the SIM registration has led to the continued proliferation of text scams.
Uy again advised the public to be wary of scammers who have “reprogrammed” their approach and reworded their text scam messages by using the ongoing SIM registration to continue to dupe people.
He said scammers would not ask people if they have registered their SIMs and to click a link if they have not followed by encoding of their personal data.
He said some scammers send text messages warning subscribers that they need to re-register their e-wallets and other online applications that use their mobile numbers.
“That is not true. Once you register your SIM card, everything is still the same, you are still registered to your e-wallet. So do not fall for those scams,” Uy said.
“As of May 10, we have more than 95 million SIM cards registered. That’s a very good number and we expect in the next few months that we’ll be able to hit our target already,” he said.
The President last month extended the April 26 deadline by three months to give more Filipinos a chance to register their SIM. More than 82 million SIMS had been registered on the eve of the initial April 26 deadline.
Data from the National Telecommunications Commission showed that 95.8 million or 57.05 percent of the 168.016 million active SIM cards in the country have already been registered as of May 14.
Of those registered, 45.36 million are Smart, 44.076 million are globe and 6.413 million are Dito.
Under Republic Act 11934 or the SIM Registration Act, mobile users should register their SIM by April 26 lest it be deactivated. The deadline was extended by 90 days or until July 25. Jocelyn Montemayor
