Stick to original deadline for SIM card registration, DICT urged
FROM INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
MANILA, Philippines — Albay Rep. Joey Salceda describes as “unusual and unilateral” the decision of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to move the deadline for SIM card registration to an earlier date.
Salceda, chair of the House ways and means committee, appealed to the DICT on Saturday to reconsider the new April 27, 2023 deadline, which is two months ahead of the original June 27 deadline.
“It’s highly unusual to make that decision. Whatever the merits, let’s just stick to what the law says … Absent any effort to make the registration more inclusive and accessible, moving the deadline earlier is not the right way to go,” Salceda said.
Salceda urged the DICT to stick to the June 27, 2023 deadline for SIM card registration as stated in the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act No. 11934.
He said such a decision was “premature since we don’t know how quickly most Filipinos will be able to register.”
RA 11934, or the SIM card registration law, provides for a 180-day registration period for SIM cards, which began on Dec. 27, 2022, and was supposed to end on June 27, 2023.
Last week, the DICT warned telco subscribers that they only have around three months to register their SIM cards with their respective telco firm, or until April.
Telco subscribers who fail to register their SIM cards may end up having their SIM cards automatically deactivated.
As of the first week of January, around 15 million SIM cards have been registered so far.
Salceda pointed out that the move to “cut short the registration period to just 120 days is a unilateral decision that is not within the DICT’s bounds to make,” adding that the registration period could still be extended by another 120 days as stated in RA 11934.
He noted that the registration process was mostly online, and “you have some 3 million Filipino mobile users who are not using smartphones.”
“Another 1.3 million young users of smartphones do not have any reliable access to mobile data. If you deactivate their SIM, you affect their studies … So, let’s be fair to them.” Salceda said.
He also pushed for “extra avenues for registration be given to senior citizens, persons with disabilities and those living in geographically isolated and displaced areas.”
“I would appeal to the Department of the Interior and Local Government to mandate and capacitate local governments to provide these avenues,” Salceda said.
