After Congress approves the SIM Registration Act, the Senate approved the said bill, voting 21-0-0 on the third and final reading. Known as SB 2395, the proposed SIM Card Registration Act will require all mobile phone users to register their SIM cards with their respective telco providers. Failure to do so would mean having their SIM deactivated or retired by the telco.

Aside from this core provision, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon introduced an additional provision that expands to social media. Under his additional provision, Drilon wants to require all social media platforms operating in the Philippines to provide their real names and phone number prior to creating an account.

Should the SIM Registration Bill (SB 2395) become a law, trolls and those caught using fake identities will face 6 months to 12 years of jail time, a fine of up to Php 200,000, or both depending on the gravity of the offense. “This provision is a solution to the anonymity that provides the environment for trolls and other malicious attacks to thrive in the age of social media,” Drilon explained.

Both Congress and Senate’s push to approve the SIM Registration bill follows the recent surge of text scams in the past few months, of which NPC’s initial findings of the text scams show that it is being operated by a global syndicate.

The bill should also protect people from being victimized with unauthorized bank transfers using different mobile numbers, which was partly the case with the recent BDO online hacking incident.