Less than half of Globe subscribers have registered their SIM cards 12 days before the deadline for registration, prompting the telecommunications company to seek an extension.

At a “Laging Handa” briefing on Friday, Ariel Tubayan, head of Policy Division, Corporate, and Legal Services Group of Globe, reiterated the call of another telecommunication firm to extend the SIM card registration deadline to 120 days since only 33 percent of their subscribers have registered their SIM cards.

Smart Communications said as of April 11 that 32, 932, 269 SIMs have registered. Including DITO's 4,953,908 subscribers, the total number of registered subscribers are 66,220, 334.

The Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) estimates that there are 150 million SIM cards.

“As of today, we have more than 29 million registrants. But this is just 33 percent, it has not reached 50 percent. That’s why we asked the DICT (Department of Information and Communication Technology) on Monday to extend the period of registration,” Tubayan said.

The deadline for SIM card registration is on April 26, but under the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the SIM Card Registration Act or Republic Act 11934, the DICT can extend the deadline to 120 days.

Failure to register would result in the deactivation of one’s SIM.

Tubayan said the low turnout of registrants was due to their lack of IDs required for registration, especially for users living in rural areas.

Asked if Globe sent a formal request for the deadline extension, Tubayan said: “ we asked for the full extension. For now, we see that it will take up to 120 days for all subscribers to be registered. And we hope that within those days the people would be able to get IDs.”

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. signed the SIM Card Registration Act into law on October 10, 2022.

The law aims to stop the spread of spam text messages and scams.

It also provides penalties for using false information or documents in registering a SIM card. Jaspearl Tan/DMS