DEPUTY Speaker for Trade and Industry and Valenzuela 1st District Rep. Wes Gatchalian has hailed the approval of House Bill (HB) 5793 or the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration Act on third and final reading.

Gatchalian expressed belief that the timely passage of this landmark legislation in the Lower House is crucial, considering the growing number of mobile subscribers who had reportedly been victimized by text scams, phishing, recruitment for suspicious job offers, identity theft, death threats, bomb scare, false information and other crimes, committed using prepaid SIM cards.

Voting 181-6-0, the House of Representatives in hybrid session passed the measure last Monday that will require the mandatory registration of SIM cards, thereby promoting responsible ownership and accountability in its use and provide law enforcement agencies the tool to resolve crimes which involve its utilization.

“We change SIM cards as fast as we change our soiled shirts. Alarmingly, this seeming boundless stream of supply has become a magnet for nefarious and illegal activities,” Gatchalian said.

“Out of the 152.4 million mobile subscribers in the country today, only 3% of which are registered postpaid users, meaning 97% or over 147 million mobile subscribers utilize unregistered prepaid numbers. This untraceable platform opens up greater prospects for small-time opportunists and organized criminal syndicates to create fake names and hide behind the anonymity that a prepaid mobile number can give, to become brazen in defrauding our citizens with their hard-earned money. There is obviously a flaw in the system that we can remedy by this legislation.” he added.

With a very high penetration rate of mobile usage, the Valenzuela lawmaker is surprised that the Philippines is among the remaining 20% of countries in the world without a mandatory SIM card registration law.

He noted that 155 countries have adopted the registration of SIM Cards and even the telcos in the Philippines are supportive of the push for mandatory SIM card registration.

Globe has the greater number of subscribers with a reported 76.6 million users having a market share of around 50%, while Smart has the second largest market share with 72.9 million users representing 48% of the total number of mobile users.

“We want to protect the interest of the public who had fallen victims not only of this recent slew of fake job offers but for other crimes that continue to use unregistered SIM Cards to spread misleading or false information, orders of fake online food/package deliveries, obscene/threatening messages, and facilitate criminal acts of terrorism,” he said.

He stressed that even text scams would virtually be eradicated should the SIM Card Registration Act be enacted into law. S.B. 2395, the Senate version of the bill is pending on 2nd Reading.

“We would easily be able to ascertain the identity of these perpetrators as everyone purchasing a prepaid SIM card would now be required to register and present a valid ID with photo in order to buy one. Nonetheless, data privacy concerns have been addressed with sufficient measures to prevent breach of confidential information.” he said.

Gatchalian further stresses that because access for food deliveries, retail services, as well as financial services like money transfers, remittances, payments, credit, have accelerated with the use of mobile/smart phones due to the pandemic, passage of the mobile prepaid SIM cards complements the proposed Internet Transactions Act (ITA), of which he is also principal author, in curbing illegal activities online.

“With these laws in place, the e-commerce sphere would be a safer place for consumers and businesses alike,” he said.