Previously junked by former President Rodrigo Duterte, a bill asking for the registration of SIM cards, but now without the social media provisions, is being refiled in the House anew.
Rising from the ashes of the former bill, House Bill No. 14 drops the extra baggage, that is, the social media aspect, in favor of a guideline that’s strictly focused on the registration of SIM cards among mobile users.
Authored by Ilocos 1st District Rep. Alexander Marcos, Leyte 1st District Rep. Martin Romualdez, and Tingog party-list Reps. Jude Acidre and Yedda Marie Romualdez, the mandate is partly aimed against the rising cases of scams sent through text messages.
The bill argues that amid the influx of scams, which is only hampered by the active effort of telcos, they could have been solved by simply requiring phone users to register their SIM cards.
See also: SIM card expiration of Smart, Globe, DITO, GOMO, TNT, TM
Globe Telecom even announced the blocking of nearly 138 million spam messages as well as the deactivation of 5,670 mobile numbers, following surging complaints, in 2021 alone.
Likewise, a similar effort is reported on the part of Globe’s main competitor PLDT, stating that it 23 million messages in the span of just three days. Recently, over 600 websites were also blocked by Smart and PLDT.