Mindanaotoday.com | 378 residents in Sagay, Mambajao avail SIM reg
By: Recthie Paculba
CAMIGUIN – Providing better access for the Subscriber Identity/Identification Module registration, especially to areas having difficulties accessing the internet, the National Telecommunications Commission-10 (NTC-10) facilitated the SIM registration at Sagay and Mambajao, with 378 registrants, on March 22-23.
Lawyer Charisma Canios-Oyangoren of NTC-10 said it is better for the subscribers to register because SIM card registration will only be available until April 26.
On April 27, their SIM will be deactivated; they will no longer be able to call and text, and they will no longer be able to use the internet or Facebook.
She added that the SIM registration was put into law to protect subscribers from online scams since thieves or scammers now thrive online.
“The current status is that there are only a few SIM buyers compared to before. The cost of a SIM card before was very cheap, say, P10, so they [scammers] could easily replace SIM cards, harass, and then just throw away the SIM. So now, we can do away with these unfortunate events since SIM cards need to be registered,” she added.
As of March 2023, Oyangoren said they had only registered 28.21%, or 48,683,292, of the target 168,977,773 subscribers throughout the country.
She added that this number only indicates that there are really a lot of scammers in the country.
“That’s what they use in online scams, so now, after April 26, they can’t scam anymore,” Oyangoren said.
Fe Aranas Belara of Mambajao was thankful for how easy it was to register a SIM card. She said a lot of the employees of the Local Government of Mambajao were able to use the service from the participating telecoms.
For her part, Elena Dalura said, “This SIM registration is very important because scammers nowadays have this modus wherein they’ll send a message saying your SIM has won and ask you to send a load to a certain number or call the attorney for details.”
She added that with the SIM registration, the authorities and even the subscribers can easily trace the scammer and get appropriate punishment from the government.
The registration is done online through the portal or applications provided by the public telecommunications entities (PTEs) such as Smart, Globe, and Dito. (RTP | PIA-10 | Camiguin)
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