With two days left before the expiry of the 180-day mandatory SIM registration nationwide, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is still open for an extension of the April 26 deadline.
Republic Act No. 11934 or the SIM Registration Act took effect on October 22, 2022, and the mandatory SIM registration began on December 27 of the same year, giving users nationwide 121 days, or until April 26, to register.
As of April 21, the SIM registration rate is still below 50 percent with 78.6 million registered users out of the estimated 168 million subscribers nationwide. However, it is up by 12 percent from April 14 when the registrants numbered 69.8 million.
Last week, the telcos appealed twice to the DICT to extend the deadline as majority of their subscribers have yet to complete the registration, but it was rejected by the DICT.
Globe yesterday sent an emergency short messaging service (SMS) alert to its prepaid subscribers to remind them to register their SIM cards.
DICT data showed that out of 78.6 million registered users, as of April 21, 38.2 million are Smart users, 34.2 million are Globe, and 5.6 million are DITO users.
“There’s no extension at this point,” Ivan Uy, DICT secretary, told Malaya Business Insight in a phone interview. Nevertheless, the decision last week is not yet final.
Uy added there is no prohibition specified in the law when the DICT should exercise its mandate to extend the deadline for registration.
“So we can extend it before the expiry or after the expiry,” Uy further said. The extension could be done after its evaluation.
Under the law’s implementing rules and regulations, the SIM registration may be extended for a period not exceeding 120 days.
Failure to register existing SIMs within the period prescribed shall result in the automatic deactivation of the SIMs. Deactivated SIMs may only be reactivated after registration provided that reactivation shall be made not later than five days after the automatic deactivation.
Uy said he expects the number of registrants to further increase. In the past few days, the SIM registration reached over one million daily.
“We have submitted to the DICT our recommendation on the extension taking into consideration the written request of the telcos,” Jon Paulo Salavahan, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) deputy commissioner, said in a phone interview.
Salavahan said the discussion with the NTC, telcos and the DICT on the request for extension continues.
PLDT Inc. and its wireless unit Smart Communications Inc. asked for an extension to give their subscribers ample time to secure valid IDs for them to register.
Globe Telecom Inc. also requested the government to allow the use of alternative forms of identification for the SIM registration, citing that many citizens may not possess official government papers.
As of press time yesterday, the DICT has no announcement yet whether it will extend the April 26 deadline, and it is urging subscribers to register their SIMs to avoid deactivation.
