SENATE President Vicente Sotto III yesterday pressed for the enactment of the vetoed SIM Card Registration Act as he stressed the importance of implementing the measure to counter call and text-related crimes in the country.
Sotto noted that unregistered SIM cards are very easy to purchase due to the lack of security measures related to their sale, which he said is taken advantage of by terrorists and criminals.
“Once SIM cards are registered, law enforcers can at least have a starting point in their investigations if a crime is committed using cellphones,” Sotto said, adding that President Duterte needs to be enlightened on the benefits of having the measure signed into law.
Malacañang announced last Friday that the President has vetoed the proposed SIM Card Registration Act, a reconciled version of Senate Bill No. 2395 and House Bill No. 5793, because he was not in favor of the provision that mandates the registration of social media accounts which may supposedly lead to “dangerous state intrusion and surveillance, threatening many constitutionally protected rights.”
To save the rejected measure, Sotto proposed two approaches: one is for both houses of Congress to override the President’s veto when they resume their sessions on May 23, and the other is for the next set of lawmakers to refile the measure in the 19th Congress.
Sotto said he will talk with Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea regarding his idea for both houses of Congress to override the veto and convince him to just question the provision on the mandatory registration of social media accounts before the Supreme Court.
“I will tell him (Medialdea) that the way to go around this is that both houses of Congress overturn the veto of the President and then the provision that they dislike can be questioned before the Supreme Court. And we can ask the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. But then again, the prepaid SIM cards must be registered already because that is part of the law,” Sotto said in a chance interview in Cebu City where he attended the 145th birth anniversary of his grandfather Vicente Yap Sotto, Father of Cebuano literature.
“I am trying to find a way to save the bill because the important thing about the bill is that prepaid SIM card registrations are very vital to be able to stop bombings, blackmail, scams using prepaid SIM cards,” he added.
The Senate President said another way of saving the measure is for the new set of lawmakers in the next Congress to refile the bill sans the provision on mandatory registration of social media accounts.
LAST-MINUTE INSERTION?
At the same time, Sotto took exception to the statement of Deputy Speaker Wes Gatchalian saying Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon was behind the allegedly “last minute” insertion of the provision requiring the mandatory registration of social media accounts.
Drilon was one of the principal authors of the measure, which was passed by both houses of Congress in February this year.
Sotto said Gatchalian was wrong in saying that the requirement was a last-minute addition because the provision was approved by the Senate when the measure was still under the period of amendments.
“When they sat down and discussed the measure during bicam deliberations, the provision was already there. They should have deleted that provision when they convened during the bicameral conference committee if they do not want it,” Sotto said.
He stressed: “That (Gatchalian’s statement) was inaccurate. It’ not a last-minute insertion. It was included in the period of amendments.”
