Calls for PrePay Phones to Be Registered in The Philippines

There have been calls in The Philippines for an existing order than requires all PrePay phones to be registered. The move is to assist crime prevention and also ensure that sales tax on the sale of top-up cards is actually collected. A former National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) commissioner, Joseph Santiago has called for the existing order to be enforced and dismisses claims that it would lead to increased cost for the networks which would be passed onto customers. Commenting on the fears of price rises, he said that the networks already encourage users to register their handsets though the use of competitions and special offers.

There are also fears that registered users may find their SMS's censored or blocked by the government. In The Philippines, SMS has proven to be a powerful tool for political change and organizing opposition. This has been denied, saying that such monitoring of SMS's would be covered by existing surveillance legislation.

The NTC order in question is the NTC Memorandum Circular 13-6-2000 issued in 2000, and no new legislation is needed to enforce the order."

Posted to the site on 19th March 2002