TEXT SCAMS continue to proliferate even after the enactment of a bill that mandates SIM (subscriber identity module) card registration, a congressmen said on Sunday.
Congress should strengthen the law, which has failed to curb online scams, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers said in a statement.
“The law was intended to curb cybercriminal activities, to address issues related to trolling, hate speech and online disinformation,” he said. “But what we are seeing and witnessing today is that online scamming activities continue and remain unabated.”
Authorities had found stashes of unused SIM cards in Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) raided by authorities, Mr. Barbers said.
“During the raids recently conducted by Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission agents in POGO facilities in Bamban and Porac towns in Pampanga, they recovered more than 50,000 unused SIM cards,” he pointed out.
“We all know too well that these POGO operators and workers won’t use them for good intentions,” he added.
Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. in his State of the Nation Address before Congress last week ordered a total ban on POGOs, citing their links to illegal activities including money laundering and financial scams.
He ordered the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) to wind down and end the operations of all POGO facilities by yearend. He also ordered the Labor department to find new jobs for POGO workers who will be displaced.
“We hear the loud cry of the people against POGOs,” Mr. Marcos said in his speech on July 22. “The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop.”
The reputational risk from POGOs, which mostly involve Chinese nationals and cater to Chinese markets, could cost the government P55.36 billion in forgone investments due to crimes linked to them, and P29.01 billion in forgone revenues in tourism, the Finance department earlier said.
Mr. Barbers said crime syndicates buy prepaid SIM cards in bulk and have managed to bypass the registration system.
“To minimize or stop online scamming and illegal transactions that victimizes unsuspecting victims, we should amend and add more teeth to the SIM Card Law to put a stop and make obsolete those various scamming schemes,” he said.
He did not say exactly how the law should be strengthened.
Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian last month said POGOs have exploited regulatory failure to implement the 2022 law that mandated the registration of SIM cards.
The law is supposed to provide accountability for those using SIM cards and support law enforcement in tracking perpetrators of crimes committed through phones, he said. “Because the National Telecommunications Commission has apparently forgotten its responsibility, scammers in the POGO industry continue to use SIM cards unabatedly,” he added. — Kenneth Chistiane L. Basilio