The reason for this? DICT said that they have already reached 100 million SIM cards registered and that the figure is already a good basis for assessing if the country has complied with close to 100% SIM registration. As of June 20, a total of 100,048,884 SIM cards have already been registered.

“Masyadong hassle pa yata. Gagawa pa tayo ng program to ano tapos we will just use it for one month. Eh yung development nun at deployment baka abutin ng three weeks or one month,” DICT Sec Ivan John Uy added, explaining that it’s not sensible to implement a program one month before the July 25 deadline for SIM registration.

If I weren’t already convinced they didn’t think this through thoroughly enough, this would do it for me. Wala silang matinong plano (if at all) sa for SIM registration. Ideally, I think, it should have been done over a couple of years, on top of a year of consultation with stakeholders.

The first year of implementation would put emphasis on getting people to register (especially for those buying new phones with new‌‌ SIM cards), and allaying various (and legitimate) concerns, showing people that they’ve got it all sorted out. Registration should not be a requirement for new SIM cards at this stage, but would be highly encouraged as it’d be a requirement soon.

In the second year of implementation, registering for new SIM cards would be mandatory (as it is at present). Dito na rin papasok yung plano dapat nila na gradual deactivation, at least may panahon sila na i-develop, i-test, at i-deploy yung gradual deactivation.