Citizen's rights group opposes revising SIM registration law

MANILA — A citizen's rights network urged state actors to focus their efforts on catching criminals rather than revising the SIM card registration law, as Filipinos’ financial losses continue to pile up with the continued prevalence of the text scams.

According to CitizenWatch Philippines, text scams are still rampant even with the passage of Republic Act 11934, or the SIM Registration Act, prompting the network to hold the law’s implementors to strengthen its fight against the criminals behind the scams.

This developed as the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) reported that around P460 billion has been scammed from Filipinos in the past 12 months, where each Filipino lost an average of $275 or P16,000. 

GASA said that there has been a rising trend in scams in the past 12 months, of which 85% have been delivered via text messages.

"CitizenWatch Philippines reminds consumers to remain vigilant as the incidents rise and as malicious actors continue to implement various modus operandi. We also call on our policymakers, law enforcement, and other key stakeholders to ensure the proper implementation of the SIM Registration Act to prevent these incidents," the organization said on its Facebook page.

Lawmakers are looking to revise and update the SIM registration act to “solve” the issue, but stakeholders like CitizenWatch are saying that the state actors should focus more on curbing crime rather.

According to the Philippine National Police, the number of cybercrimes increased by 21.8% in the first quarter of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, even with the implementation of the SIM registration.