THE government has decided to extend for 90 days the deadline for the registration of SIM cards which was supposed to end April 26 under the SIM Registration Act, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla announced on Tuesday.
But Remulla warned of social media unavailability for SIM card users who will fail to register during the extension period.
“There’s a 90-day extension, but most of the services that come with the cellphones that are registered will be cut off with the telcos. So there will be social media unavailability for those who do not register in the next 90 days,” Remulla said.
Remulla’s announcement came as the Supreme Court has raffled off the petition filed by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and several other individuals seeking to declare as unconstitutional Republic Act No. 11934 also known as the SIM Registration Act.
The petitioners argued that the law should be struck down for violating the basic constitutional rights of SIM card users such as freedom of speech, right against unreasonable searches and seizures and right to privacy of communication.
The Court was also asked to order public telecommunication entities (PTEs) to cease and desist from using, storing, transferring, and processing all information gathered into the SIM register and to destroy data already gathered.
The petitioners noted that as of April 7, 2023, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) estimates that 168, 977, 773 SIM cards are currently in use in the country. Of that figure, only about 62, 170, 268 or 36.79 percent have so far registered under the SIMRegistration Act.
Thus, 63.21 percent or 106,807,505 SIM cards will be deactivated and their users will be permanently silenced when the April 26 deadline comes.
Named respondents in the petition were the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the National Privacy Commission, DICT, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Education, and telecommunication companies such as Globe Telecom Inc., Smart Communications, Inc., Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), Dito Telecommunity Corporation, DIgitel Mobile Philippines Inc., Sun Cellular and Cherry Mobile Communications Inc.