Sales representatives of telecommunications company assist clients in registering their prepaid SIM at the gadgets section in Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan City on December 27, 2022. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News
MANILA — The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Friday said it is not targeting the 100 percent of SIM registration, with days left before the deadline.
NTC Deputy Commissioner John Paulo Salvahan cited the experiences of other countries, where an average registration only reaches 70 percent and the rest of unregistered SIMs gets deactivated.
"We are not looking at 100 percent registration, most likely 'yung ibang SIMs diyan, hindi na ire-register, either one reason or another," Salvahan said in a televised briefing.
"'Yung benchmark, puwede siguro tingnan natin but as of now, wala pang final number na tinitingnan tayo," he added.
Salvahan said as of April 20, around 75.5 million SIMs or 45 percent of the total number of active SIMs are currently registered. The NTC earlier said there are 168.9 million total active SIMs in the country.
Unregistered SIMs will be automatically deactivated, he said, but this could be reactivated if appealed within 5 days.
"The law and the IRR provided a way on how these SIMs could be reactivated within 5 days from automatic deactivation. Puwede niyong ipa-reactivate ang SIM within 5 days," he said.
The implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the SIM Registration Act, however, does not provide a mechanism on how this would be done and what grounds will be considered for reactivation.
On Wednesday, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said there was so far no extension of the April 26 SIM registration deadline amid requests from telco firms.
Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual had said he supports calls to extend the SIM registration, as this would help in the country's shift to digital payments.
Globe, Smart and DITO earlier cited the lack of valid IDs as one of the main reasons why many telco subscribers are not able to register their SIMs. Subscribers in remote areas in the provinces are also having problems registering because of weak internet signals.
DICT earlier said they have the prerogative to extend the extension for another 120 days, based on the law's implementing rules and regulations.
Video from PTV