President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Monday, October 10, has signed the SIM Card Registration Act, the first law enacted under his administration.
The ceremonial signing was held in Malacañang with Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, and other stakeholders as witnesses.
“I commend the legislators from the House and from the Senate for coming up with this timely and necessary law. It is the first legislative measure that successfully passed the approval of the bicameral panel of both houses in the 19th Congress,” the Chief Executive said.
Filipinos, and foreigners too, must now register their SIM cards with their telcos after Pres. Marcos Jr. signed Republic Act No. 11934, or the SIM Registration Act, into law in Malacañang, in an attempt to intensify government initiatives against scams and crimes committed through text and online messages.
Existing and first-time SIM card owners must register their SIM card information with their Public Telecommunication Entity within 180 days from the effectivity of the law. New SIM cards will only be activated upon registration with the PTE.
Failure to do so will result to deactivation and fines of P100,000 up to P1 million, with breqch of confidentiality amounting to P500,000 and up to P4 million.
Those who will provide false information will be sentenced to 6 months up to 2 years of jail time with penalties amounting to P300,000.
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy suggested that prepaid SIM card subscribers be allowed to register as many SIM cards under their name online to prevent people from flocking to the offices of their respective PTE.
In signing the measure, Marcos Jr. noted that the government will finally achieve the “long overdue” goal of having an effective means of regulating the issuance of SIM cards to curb the spread of spam text messages and scams.
“We will soon be able to provide law enforcement agencies with the tools needed to resolve crimes perpetrated with the use of these SIM cards, as well as providing a strong deterrence against the commission of wrongdoing. Truly, the legislation is going to be welcomed by many of our people, especially now with reports of the commission of various crimes using mobile phones, including the proliferation of text scams and spam,” he said.
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