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
90-day extension 'more than enough' time to register SIMs: DICT
MANILA — Those who still fail to register within the 90-day extension period may experience a gradual loss of privileges in SIM services, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) warned on Tuesday.
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said this "incentive" aims to compel users to register their SIMs ahead of the deadline. This matter is still being taken upon by telecommunication firms, including the "schedule the gradual reduction of services."
Among the services that can be affected is access to social media sites like Facebook and Tiktok, as well as outgoing and incoming calls and texts.
"For those who are registered in the first 30 or 60 days, we are still deciding on the date. Let's say after the 60 days, you will lose your access to your FB accounts or to your Tiktok accounts but you can still use your phone, you can still call and text," Uy told Palace reporters.
"But then after a certain period, you will lose your outgoing calls. So that way ramdam niyo yung effect ng hindi kayo nagpaparehistro. Eventually, once we reach the 90 (day) period, you will lose completely all services to all your SIMs," he added.
Asked to clarify this statement, the DICT chief said there would be no need to talk to the heads of the said social media platforms here in the country, adding that they would just "limit" the access of users with unregistered SIMs.
This move, the official noted, will also prompt amendments in the law's implementing rules and regulations.
"It is up to the telcos, we would be meeting with the telcos to find out which particular option would be most feasible to do gradually over the time frame," the official said.
"That is... going to have the biggest impact in convincing our kababayans to the registration. Yun ang ramdam nila, hindi na sila makapag-post ng Tiktok or whatever," he added.
Meanwhile, Uy said the 90-day extension will be "enough time" for users to register. The DICT has also identified areas in provinces that have a low turnout of registrants.
Authorities will focus on these areas within the extension period, he said.
He also expects total SIM registrations to reach 100 million during this time. At present, only 82.2 million or nearly 50 percent of the 168.9 million total active SIMs in the country have so far registered.
President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. earlier in the day approved the extension of the SIM registration deadline to around 3 months, as this was supposed to run only until on Wednesday.