FILE PHOTO: A person only needs to give his name, birthday, address, gender, and a government-issued picture ID to register his/her SIM card. INQUIRER FILES
With the 90-day extension of the mandatory subscriber identity module (SIM) registration, the government and telecommunications firms should use the time to further simplify the process for millions of Filipinos whose SIM cards remain unregistered.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez said overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families should be assisted in registering SIM cards so they can communicate despite the distance.
In a statement on Friday, Romualdez said the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and telco firms should work jointly to make SIM card registration simpler, faster, and more convenient.
“Let us help millions of Filipinos who have mobile phones but who still have not registered their SIMs as required by law to register. Let us make it easier for them to take advantage of the 90-day registration extension granted by President Marcos Jr.,” he said.
Romualdez urged the Department of Migrant Workers and the Department of Foreign Affairs to help the DICT, NTC, and telcos in educating OFWs and their families in the mandatory SIM card registration.
“I suspect that OFWs’ families in the provinces are finding it difficult to comply with the registration requirement, and some may even be unaware of it,” he said.
Romualdez said OFWs’ families may still be using unlisted prepaid SIM cards because of the convenience of buying it.
“Their mobile phones are their principal means of communicating and connecting to each other. The thought that they could instantly make audio-video calls eases the pain of being thousands of miles away from home and from their loved ones,” the House Speaker added.
While he lauded telco firms for offering SIM card registration assistance for their subscribers, Romualdez asked them “to go the extra mile in seeking out people who have bought and used their SIMs and help them register.”
The DICT said it is targeting the registration of 20 million SIM cards legitimately owned by telco subscribers.
Data from the NTC showed that as of April 24, 87.442 million out of 168.016 million active SIM cards have been registered.
The DICT said it is looking at 100 to 110 million SIM cards legitimately owned and used by telco subscribers, while the rest are being used for scams or telemarketing.
READ: SIM card registration extended for 90 days — DOJ