MANILA, Philippines— The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will meet with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday to make a final decision on a possible extension for SIM card registration.
“Yes, we’ll be discussing SIM registration, among others,” DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said over the ABS-CBN News Channel when asked if he would meet the President in Malacañang to discuss the extension.
“This is important and this is urgent because tomorrow’s already the deadline, so we like to make some decisions once and for all,” he added.
Uy stated that the DICT will immediately announce their decision in a subsequent press conference.
With only half of the country’s 164 million active SIM users registered two days before the deadline, an extension ranging from 60-120 days will be discussed at a sectoral Cabinet meeting upon the recommendations of the country’s telecommunications giants.
“We received their reports, identified issues, and concerns as to why there are still some people who were not able to register. So in today’s sectoral meeting in the cabinet, we’ll be discussing those things,” said Uy.
Uy stated, however, that delaying the decision on the extension has “caused a significant increase in the number of registrants.”
“A month or two ago, I think the average registration was around 100,000 per day. But for the past two weeks, we were hitting more than one million registrants per day,” said the information technology secretary.
Uy also clarified that both pre- and post-paid SIM users must register their cards under their respective telecommunications providers.
SIM cards that are still unregistered after April 26 will be deactivated under the SIM Registration Act.
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