Spam, scam messages continue despite SIM registration; daily complaints dropped per DICT

Text scams continue to drop nearly two years following the enforcement of the SIM Card Registration Act, with only 193 reported daily complaints, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said on Friday.

At the plenary deliberations on the DICT's P7.8-billion proposed 2025 allocation, Makati Rep. Luis Campos, the budget sponsor, reported that from 121,826 in December 2022, daily complaints plunged to 193 as of September this year.

Before the law took effect on 27 December 2022, Campos narrated that the reported cases were 51,874 only from the period of September to 26 December of the same year.

"Currently, the average daily number of complaints recorded is now 489.37. So the drop in documented complaints is substantial," Campos said.

Despite the reported decline, Representatives France Castro and Arlene Brosas stressed that there is still a need for the DICT to double its efforts to totally put a stop to the proliferation of text scams -- the sole objective of why Congress passed the law.

"Spam and scam messages are getting worse almost two years after it was enacted. [It] continues to come in," Brosas averred. "SIM card registration did not solve this."

Both Castro and Brosas lamented that they themselves have been victims of text scams and fake text alerts about unpaid loans and overdue traffic penalties.

The text includes a link, which if clicked, would lead to a phishing site, stealing personal information.

Campos, however, countered that such text scams "no longer pass through the network or SIM" and came directly to the Internet, which is not regulated by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

"According to the 1995 NTC Act, the Internet is not a basic service, which falls under the direct regulatory control of the NTC," Campos explained.

He added, "The NTC’s position there is only recommendatory. So, they have to undertake negotiation processes with the internet service providers."

A bill seeking to make the Internet as basic service, whose principal author includes Campos himself, was already passed on final reading by the House of Representatives.

Previously, the DICT admitted that scam messages will continue to exist as the perpetrators become increasingly innovative as they circumvent the law, shifting to messaging apps, instead of the traditional text messages.