State Dining Room, Malacañan Palace
April 25, 2023

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. presided over a sectoral meeting on updates regarding the subscriber identity module (SIM) card registration at the State Dining Room in Malacañan Palace.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) informed the President that it had a meeting with stakeholders composed of public telecommunication entities and relevant agencies on 24 April 2023, and presented its proposal for an extension of the SIM registration period after the 26 April 2023 deadline.

As of 23 April 2023, more than 82 million SIMs have been registered or 49.31% of total active SIMs as of December 2022. Currently, there are 168,016,400 total number of active SIMs in the Philippines.

From the 82 million registered SIMs, more than 37 million are Globe subscribers, more than 39 million are Smart subscribers and more than five (5) million are Dito subscribers.

President Marcos Jr. approved the 90-day extension of SIM registration after the 26 April 2023 deadline. Failure to register within the given period of extension will result to limited SIM services from the telecommunication companies. He issued a directive to the DICT to make a public announcement on this matter.

DICT is targeting to register 70% of active SIMs within the 90-day extension and reported to the President that more Filipinos will enjoy social, digital and financial inclusion upon SIM registration.

In the weeks/days leading to the 26 April 2023 deadline, there has been a sharp increase in the number of daily registrants. To ramp up SIM registration, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and other relevant government agencies have been conducting facilitated SIM registration in remote areas.

Republic Act No. 11934 or the SIM Registration Act signed by President Marcos Jr. on 10 October 2022 aims to curb the alarming spread of spam messages and scams through short messaging services (SMS) or text in the country.

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