President Duterte’s veto of the SIM card registration bill last week is a welcome development.
The bill, passed by both houses of Congress, mandates all telecommunications companies to register SIM cards as a prerequisite to their sale and activation to curb fraud and other crimes committed using unregistered mobile phones. But the bill—quite separate from its title and scope– also requires social media account providers to require a real name and phone number upon creating an account, ostensibly to expose the identities of online trolls and bullies.
A Palace spokesman last week said the President, in vetoing the bill, observed that the inclusion of social media providers in the registration requirement “was not part of the original version of the bill and needs a more thorough study.”
“Prior versions only mandated the registration of SIM cards,” the Palace said in a statement. “The President similarly found that certain aspects of state intrusion, or the regulation thereof, have not been duly defined, discussed, or threshed out in the enrolled bill, with regard to social media registration.”
The Palace spokesman said the President “was constrained to disagree” with the inclusion of social media in the measure without providing proper guidelines, saying it may “give rise to a situation of dangerous state intrusion and surveillance threatening many constitutionally protected rights.”
“It is incumbent upon the Office of the President to ensure that any statute is consistent with the demands of the Constitution, such as those which guarantee individual privacy and free speech,” the Palace added.
There is a measure of irony that an administration that has done so much to stifle press criticism in the last six years now uses the principle of free speech to justify a veto of a potentially dangerous bill—but who are we to look a gift horse in the mouth?
The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) observes that mandatory registration of social media accounts prevents internet users from exercising their right to anonymity, and, for some, even their ability to express themselves and freely associate with others.
The SIM card registration bill also imposes an unnecessary burden on mobile phone users and third-party resellers, which consist mainly of small businesses.
Nor is SIM card registration an effective tool against criminals. In fact, the experience of many countries has clearly demonstrated the numerous ways through which criminals and rogue state actors regularly circumvent this type of regulation, the FMA notes. In some areas, this type of regulation has even caused the emergence of black markets where stolen or counterfeit SIM cards are sold, as well as an increase in handset thefts, as demand for untraceable phones spiked.
Finally, the potential for abuse and function creep is high, especially when it comes to the use of the registration information for surveillance, the FMA says. Moreover, the bill seeks to establish another massive database that immediately presents itself as a major security risk.
Opposition senators who think this bill will unmask online trolls working for the Palace should remember that legislation—especially the ill-considered variety—is a double-edged sword.
We need only look at how this administration misused the draconian Anti-Cybercrime Act of 2012 to harass and persecute its critics.
Some senators, bristling at the veto, speak of overriding it. Do we really need our legislators to expend their time and energy to impose regulations that will prove ineffective and even harmful, and burden 170 million mobile phone users with even more red tape and bureaucracy? We say good riddance to bad legislation.