5 days to reactivate unregistered SIMs

CEBU, Philippines — Those that failed to beat the deadline of the SIM registration period yesterday have five day days to reactivate so they can still use their old numbers.

The SIMs, though, would only be reactivated if the owners have already duly registered their numbers.

National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Region VII-Enforcement and Operations Division Officer-in-charge Felipe Gumalo, Jr. said the owners will have to go to their respective telcos  and request for reactivation of their SIM.

He warned ahead that the process could be inconvenient.

“Same process pero inconvenient na sa ilang part, hasol na, kay momentarily di sila ka-access sa ilang mga e-wallets so ang ilang mga transactions, any bank transactions or any government transactions associated with the number, ilang number, wala na silay access,” he said.

Globe Telecommunications, PLDT and Smart Communications, and Dito Telecommunity assured that they will give subscribersa chance to reactivate their Sims.

PLDT and SMART Communications’ Public Affairs Officer Marylou Gocotano said they sent a message a minute after the deadline  to inform the owners that the unregistered SIMs can still be reactivated.

While unregistered SIM may still receive text messages, it  can no longer do  outgoing calls and texts.

“Dili na makadawat og outgoing call or text pero makadawat pa og message from Smart na you should register your sim…So i-divert ka or i-guide ka didto sa portal para makaregister and makadawat gihapon ka sa imong OTP sa imong number, once successfully done na mabalik na to imong services,” Gocotano said.

As of July 23, 2023, there are already 105,260,340 registered SIMs in the Philippines,  49 million of which are with Smart, 48 million are with Globe and around seven million are with DITO.

Gumalo said implementation of the SIM registration in the country is successful, yet they cannot expect a hundred percent result especially that they are gatekeeping against scammers and those involved in cybercrimes.

“Ang among target naa ra sa I think 100 to 105 million but na hit na namo ang lower target na hundred million…So I think okay nana siya,” he said. — Kristin De Dios (FREEMAN)