By Arabella Asis
The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) reported that around 45% of active subscriber identity modules (SIMs) or around 75.5 million are already registered as of Thursday, April 20.
At the Laging Handa public briefing on Friday, April 21, NTC Deputy Commissioner Atty. Jon Paulo Salvahan said they have observed a “sharp increase” in the number of registrants from April 1 to 18, with almost one million registrations received per day.
“If that range will continue, assuming na magkaroon ng extension, sasapat naman ang period to increase substantially ‘yung number of registrants natin,” Salvahan said.
However, they are not expecting a 100% turnout in SIM card registration.
“We’re not looking at 100% registration [because] most likely ‘yung iba pong SIMs diyan, hindi na po ireregister either one reason or another,” he explained.
Salvahan also stressed that there are certain factors that would be considered before extending the SIM registration deadline.
“Ang factors po na kino-consider natin diyan [ay] ‘yung rate of registration, ‘yung possible po na mga concerns or issues on why the subscribers could not get registered. ‘Yun po ‘yung mga some of the factors na tinitingnan natin,” he added.
The NTC, together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and Local Government Units (LGUs), are continuously conducting facilitated SIM registration in remote areas to increase the number of registrants.
In addition, telecommunications companies also installed booths to assist subscribers in registering their SIM cards.
To date, the government is not keen to extend the April 26 deadline for SIM registration. – cf
