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Mandatory SIM registration pushed after bus blast


A senator on Wednesday pushed for the mandatory registration of SIM cards after initial investigations showed that a cellphone was used to detonate the bomb inside a passenger bus the previous day. "This is a wake-up call," said Sen. Vicente "Tito" Sotto III during a Senate inquiry on the recent spate of crimes in the country. "We should now ask Telcom companies to register SIM cards." Five people were killed and more than a dozen were injured in Tuesday’s explosion inside a Quezon City-bound Newman Goldliner bus along the Makati portion of EDSA, a major Metro Manila thoroughfare. Sotto said registering SIM cards will allow authorities to trace it if ever it is used in criminal activities. He said prepaid cards had not only been used in bombings but also in other crimes like kidnappings and carnappings.


"If you find the SIM card used in that triggering device, you will not be able to trace it... because it is not registered," he said. President Benigno Aquino III, however, expressed apprehension over the proposal, noting privacy concerns. "[The proposal] needs a little bit of study," Aquino told reporters after attending the 400th anniversary of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. "There should be a middle ground where the need for security and the constitutional right of privacy can both be respected and addressed." He noted that the registration of a person’s SIM card could lead to invasion of his privacy. "With the propensity for hacking, made worse by obsolete wiretapping laws, there a big possibility that this could invade privacy, which is enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution," Aquino said. Sotto, meanwhile, asked the Philippine National Police and the Department of Interior and Local Government to back him up in pushing for mandatory SIM registration. "You have to set your foot down. We are the only country in the world that does not register the pre-paid SIM card and I wonder why the telecoms refuse," he said. He said in other countries, tourists need to show his or her passport if he or she wants to buy a SIM card. In the Philippines, on the other hand, one can buy a prepaid SIM card wherever it is available. — KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV
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