Marcos welcomes 100% decline in text scams

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday welcomed a report showing that text scam complaints dropped 93.3 percent after the implementation of the Republic Act (RA) 11934 or the SIM (subscriber identity module) Card Registration Act, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.

On his official Facebook page and Twitter account, Marcos said this showed that the digital space in the Philippines is becoming “safer” against emerging cyberthreats, vulnerabilities and other online criminal activities.

“93.3 percent ang ibinaba ng mga reklamong natatanggap ng National Telecommunications Office simula ng ating ipatupad ang SIM Card Registration Act (The number of complaints received by the National Telecommunications Office has dropped by 93.3 percent since we implemented the SIM Card Registration Act),” Marcos said.

“Unti-unti nang nagiging mas ligtas ang ating digital space kaya naman patuloy naming inaanyayahan ang lahat na magregister na para sa panatag na pagnenegosyo, pagtatrabaho at pamumuhay (Our digital space is becoming more and more secure that's why we continue to invite everyone to register for safe business, work and life),” he added.

Lawyer Andres Castelar Jr., National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) legal branch officer-in-charge, said text scam complaints went down to 100 per day from 1,500 complaints prior to the effectivity of the SIM card registration.

Castelar added text scam complaints were expected to further decline once all SIM cards were registered in the system.

As of March 12, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said a total of 44,298,445 subscribers or 26.22 percent of the 168,977,773 subscribers across the country have registered their SIM cards since Marcos signed the SIM Registration Act into law.

The DICT is eyeing to extend for another 120 days the deadline for SIM registration which is supposedly on April 26 to give more subscribers time to register.

It is also reaching out to senior citizens as part of its assistance and information campaign to educate and encourage subscribers to register their SIM cards.

RA 11934 is the first law signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.

The law, signed by Marcos on Oct. 8 last year, requires Public Telecommunication Entities (PTEs) or direct sellers to demand end users of SIM cards to present a valid identification document to validate their identities.

It also requires PTEs to submit a verified list of their authorized dealers and agents nationwide to the NTC an updated list of the same every quarter of each year.