WITH the slew of bomb scares flooding Metro Manila and Davao City since the Davao night market bombing incident and the nationwide declaration a state of lawlessness, two senators have called on President Rodrigo Duterte to certify as urgent bills that would mandate the registration of prepaid subscriber identity modules (SIM) cards.
Senator Win Gatchalian explained that mandatory registration would help curb the increasing number of hoax bomb threats and empower law enforcement authorities to trace and suppress legitimate terror threats during these uncertain times.
Gatchalian who filed Senate Bill 203, or the "SIM Card Registration Act," stressed the necessity of his bill as the country remains under a state of national emergency on account of lawless violence in the wake of the tragic Davao City bombing.
"Mandatory registration of prepaid mobile numbers will discourage ill-willed pranksers and allow us to punish those who currently perpetrate security scares through text message with impunity," said Gatchaluan.
Under Senate Bill 203, all direct sellers of prepaid SIM cards must compel prospective buyers to present a valid photo ID before completing the sale.
Meanwhile, current owners of prepaid SIM cards would be mandated to register themselves and their mobile numbers within 180 days from the effectivity of the law.
Existing SIM cards, which are not registered within the 180-day period, would be automatically scheduled for deactivation.
However, Gatchalian assured the public that their cellular data information would still be kept confidential in accordance with the applicable laws.
"The information collected under this law will be made available to pertinent government agencies only after the proper legal processes have been followed. What is important here is to have the information readily available, so that law enforcement authorities can respond to imminent security threats swiftly and effectively for the safety and benefit of the general public," said Gatchalian.
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto had already proposed the prepaid SIM card registration way back on the 12th Congress as a resolution. He refiled it as a bill on the 16th Congress and now on the 17th Congress as Senate Bill 7, in his bid to neutralize cellphone aided crimes in the country.
Sotto's bill requires all telecommunication companies to register their prepaid SIM cards since modern-day criminals and terrorists have been taking advantage of the mobile phone technology.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III criticized the telecommunications companies for continuously refusing to register their prepaid SIM cards and help the government in fighting various criminalities in the country, especially terrorism.
Sotto said that telecommunications companies have been opposing the passage of the bill, while the law enforcement agencies like the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police (PNP), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have been very supportive to the proposed measure.
"The benefits of having this kind of technology, however, does not always work for the betterment of the society because prepaid SIM cards are unregistered and untraceable, therefore, it can be used to carry out illegal activities," Sotto said.
The bill also stated that all mobile phone service providers shall require ownership registration as prerequisite to selling prepaid SIM cards.
The use of prepaid SIM in this country has flourished considering that this can be purchased practically anywhere by anybody without any required identification and credit background restrictions, making it very convenient to avail of cellular services in an instant.
In the Philippines, subscriber base of prepaid SIM cards grew dramatically each year reaching an estimated number of almost 100 million, which comprise about 90 percent of the entire cellular phone service market. This definitely makes such technology as a favored tool in the commission of crimes by both the organized and small-scale criminals alike.
It has been confirmed by investigators in the Philippine National Police in their number of reports over the recent years that perpetrators of bombings in public places in various parts of the country made use of cellular prepaid phones to trigger bomb explosion that killed and injured many innocent victims.
Sotto pointed out that this piece of legislation primarily intends to be an effective remedial measure to mandate cellular service providers to require the registration of all prepaid cell phone subscribers by asking valid ID at purchase, and in turn start build databases and come up with profiles of these buyers the same way police detectives profile criminal suspects to easily detect criminal perpetrators. (Sunnex)