SC rejects petition vs card registration
BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and ASHZEL HACHERO
PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. yesterday approved a 90-day extension for the mandatory registration of the subscriber identity module (SIM) card even as the Supreme Court rejected the plea for the issuance of a temporary restraining order filed by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and other petitioners seeking to stop the implementation of the SIM Card Registration Act.
A video posted by Radio Television Malacañang on its Facebook page said the President approved the extension during a sectoral meeting in Malacanang and also ordered the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to inform the public of the extension after the April 26 deadline.
The Supreme Court, meeting en banc in Baguio, “denied the prayer to issue a temporary restraining order in the National Union of Journalists of the Philippine Inc. et al versus the National Telecommunications et al,” the tribunal said in a briefer.
No reasons were given for the denial of the petition. No information was also provided as to how the justices voted.
Sen. Grace Poe said the 90-day extension “is most welcome” as it will give legitimate subscribers, especially those in remote areas, more time to register their SIM cards until July 25.
The DICT said that as of April 23, more than 82 million SIMs have been registered or 49.31 percent of the total active SIMs as of December 2022. Of the number, more than 37 million are Globe subscribers, more than 39 million are Smart subscribers, and more than 5 million are Dito subscribers.
DICT Secretary Ivan Uy, in a briefing after the sectoral meeting, said there are more than 168 million active SIMs in the Philippines and around 100 million SIMs still need to be registered.
Uy urged the public to take advantage of the extension period to avoid the risk of getting their SIMs deactivated and losing access to their social media accounts if they used their mobile numbers to register.
He clarified the government is not shutting down the different social media accounts but subscribers may lose their access if their numbers are deactivated.
He said the DICT will meet with the telecommunication companies to determine what social media accounts and other services may be affected with the deactivation of the SIM card and eventually the corresponding mobile number.
Uy also said that for now, the 90-day extension is a reasonable period for the registration.
He said under the implementing rules and regulations of the law, those whose SIM cards were deactivated will be given five days to have them reactivated. He said there is a possibility the five days may be extended to a few more days.
Uy also said that barangay identification (ID) cards are allowed to be used by the subscribers in registering their SIM, adding the public can request IDs from their barangays if they do not have any other government-issued cards.
He said that to ramp up SIM registration, especially in remote and geographically-challenged areas, barangays are already establishing help desks while other government agencies led by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), along with private telecommunication companies, have been conducting SIM registration in remote areas.
Under Republic Act No. 11934 or the SIM Registration Act signed by the President last October 10, 2022, SIM must be registered as part of efforts to curb the alarming spread of spam messages and scams through short messaging services (SMS) or text in the country.
Uy also warned the public that with the extension of the SIM registration period, scammers and unscrupulous people are also indirectly given a 90-day period to continue doing illegal activities.
He said some scammers are using the SIM card registration to pose as representatives of banks to get the details of the subscribers.
“Unfortunately, with this announcement of a 90-day extension, we expect that text scams will increase again because we have now given them a 90-day window to continue their nefarious activities,” Uy said.
“So, it was a pro and con thing, and it was difficult for us to make this decision, but again, we want the public to avail, really, of the SIM card registration. And ultimately, it is really for our own good and to protect the public from all these criminal activities and all these scams that are going about,” he added.
POE REACTION
“DICT’s decision on availing of the extension period for SIM registration as provided under the law is most welcome. SIM Registration was meant to promote the responsible use of SIM and to halt the abuses of scammers and criminals. It is not meant to punish legitimate SIM subscribers, especially those at remote areas,” said Poe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services.
Poe, who introduced the bill in the Senate, said that when the measure was still being deliberated, lawmakers considered the compliance of the more than 169 million SIM subscribers, adding they expected the need to extend the deadline.
Poe said the NTC and telecommunication companies should double their efforts in reaching out to subscribers in rural and remote areas.
“While a number of locations have been visited for remote registration, a lot more ground needs to be covered as key areas such as BARMM have yet to be reached, according to the data by NTC. It should be all hands on-deck in expanding the reach of SIM Registration and in ensuring that no one gets left behind,” she said.
“Telcos must also mobilize and go down to the grassroots to reach out to more of their subscribers. As most telcos have been enjoying vast profits from their services, they have the corresponding obligation and the necessary resources to track down their SIM users and to widen the opportunity for registration,” she added.
Poe said the DICT should not let its guards down and look into the continuing activities of spammers.
“…These scams and fraudulent messages still persist and victimize unsuspecting Filipinos.
The Department must look into how these syndicates are able to hijack the system and compromise our communications,” Poe said, adding the DICT, NTC, and telcos should provide the public with correct information about the law to help clarify the confusion surrounding it.
She said that SIM cards will still be available in local retailers and sari-sari stores nationwide even past the SIM registration deadline but users will be required to register first before they can activate their new SIMs.
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III said authorities should “just follow the timetables in the law” after the extension was allowed.
“Take advantage of the extension period to announce thru multi-media of the need for legitimate SIM card users to register. Then after the extension period, that’s it. We should assume that those registered at the end of the long process are all those SIM cards which want to be used in a legitimate way,” he said.
Pimentel earlier said there is no need to extend the registration period since doing so will defeat its purpose of weeding out the ones used in illegal activities.
“The object of the law is to really find out which SIMs are not being used for serious, legal, and important purposes. If only 44 percent are worth keeping active, then so be it,” Pimentel said last Monday.
PETITION JUNKED
The petitioners against the SIM Registration Act asked the SC to declare the law unconstitutional and issue a TRO to immediately stop the law’s implementation.
They also wanted the high court to order telecommunication companies to “cease and desist” from using information stored into their SIM register and destroy data already gathered.
The petitioners argued that mandatory SIM registration restricts the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech and violates the right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the right to substantive due process.
Joining the NUJP in the petition were journalist Ronalyn Olea, Lumad leader and former Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Eufemia Cullamat, Bayan Secretary-General Renato Reyes Jr., Llorre Benidicto Pasco, the mother of two “tokhang” victims; transgender man Dean Matthias Razi Timtiman Alea, information technology professional Maded Batara III of Junk SIM Registration Network, fisherfolk leader Alberto Roldan of Pamalakaya, peasant leader Danilo Hernandez Ramos of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, and lawyer Michael Christopher de Castro.
Named respondents were the National Telecommunications Commission, the National Privacy Commission, and the Department of Information and Communications Technology, as well as private telecommunication firms.
WEIGHING IN
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte thanked the Justice Department for heeding calls to extend the deadline for SIM card registration, saying the government has avoided shutting out from digital and financial inclusion legions of Filipinos who most likely own the more than 100 million still-unregistered SIMs.
“A non-extension of the registration period will have led to the disenfranchisement come Wednesday (April 26) of the legion of legit SIM owners who had failed to sign up, thereby dealing a severe blow to the Marcos administration’s efforts to fast-track our country’s digital transformation,” said the lawmaker, who was the first to urge the DOJ to extend the deadline.
“Hence, we welcome this decision to extend the registration deadline by 90 days as this 3-month grace period would give the DICT, NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) and PTEs (public telecommunications entities) time to further intensify their list-up drives from hereon and for the government to fix hitches such as stringent identification requirements, weak or no connectivity and other digital challenges believed behind the low registry turnout,” he said.
Villafuerte has co-authored Republic Act (RA) 11934 on the mandatory registration of SIM numbers between Dec. 27, 2022 and April 26, 2023 as part of government efforts to stop text scams, identity theft and other cellular phone-based cybercrimes.
Local telecommunication operators also lauded the government’s move to extend the SIM (subscriber identity module) registration but said they will face difficulty in the implementation of the SIMs partial deactivation.
“We welcome the 90 days extension which gives our subscribers more time to register plus more time for us and gov’t to campaign for SIM Reg. But as to the gradual deactivation which they’re still evaluating–discussions with the DICT (Department of Information Communication Inc), NTC (National Telecommunication Commission) are still ongoing but it would really be difficult for us to implement due to time constraints,” said Cathy Yang of the corporate communications of PLDT and Smart. — With Raymond Africa, Wendell Vigilia, and Myla Iglesias
