EDITORIAL - Waiting for the 11th hour again?

As of last March 21, only 49.20 million of the estimated 169 million Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards all over the Philippines have been registered, or a measly 29.12%. Not even a third of the total number.

The set deadline for registration of SIM cards is April 26.

We know how all this started; people with cellphones were getting too much spam and scam messages that lawmakers decided to require people to register their SIM cards. This move came with the added promise that it will stop some groups from using cellphones to run their criminal enterprise.

For now it is too early to tell if criminals will be deterred from using cellphones, although it has been observed that text scams are becoming fewer and farther in between. There is no doubt that they are still there, but people are no longer receiving them in the same volumes as before.

There is a bad Filipino trait we call the mañana habit; waiting until the 11th hour to do something, whether it’s to do repairs on one’s house, seeking medical aid for an illness, registering to vote, doing the laundry, or anything else for that matter. We always have that tendency of waiting until the last minute to do something that we somehow don’t like to do or find too tedious.

With the way things are going, there is a chance that most of SIM users will only register as the deadline draws nearer and nearer, choking the systems of the telecommunication companies and possibly leading to heavy network traffic, not to mention failures to register.

If and when that happens, and SIM cards get blocked or deactivated because their owners didn’t beat the deadline, those who dilly-dallied will not likely blame themselves but the government.

A new deadline may have to be set and some will again fall into the false sense of security that it is yet so far away. And the cycle repeats itself.

Of course, one can avoid all this and register now while the portals are not yet swamped. A stitch in time saves nine.