SC asked to strike down SIM Registration Act for violating fundamental freedoms
MANILA, Philippines — Petitioners from different sectors, led by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the SIM Registration Act for being unconstitutional.
In a petition filed with the assistance of Leflegis Legal Services and the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers on Monday, they told the tribunal that Republic Act 11934 should be declared unconstitutional for infringing on four sections of the Bill of Rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Specifically, they asserted that the mandatory SIM registration "restricts the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech and violates the right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the right to substantive due process," petitioners said in a separate press statement.
The petitioners also asked the SC to issue a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction to restrain the government from implementing the law while their plea is pending.
They also asked the respondents to "cease and desist from using, storing, transferring, and processing all information gathered into the SIM Register and destroy data already gathered."
"[T]his Petition presents to this Honorable Court the line that, if crossed, will warp the nation from one that exercises Police Power for the common good of its citizens into a Police State that justifies all manners of intrusions and exceptions of the very First Principles we have collectively bound ourselves to uphold," they said.
NUJP is represented by its chairman Jonathan de Santos, who is also a news editor of Philstar.com. He is joined by journalist Len Olea from alternative newsite Bulatlat, former Rep. Eufemia Cullamat (Bayan Muna partylist) who is also a Lumad leader, Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes and six others.
Named as respondents are the National Telecommunications Commission, Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Privacy Commission, and the Departments of Trade and Industry, and the Interior and Local Government, and of Education.
Public Telecommunication Entities were also tagged as private respondents.
Violation of fundamental freedoms
Petitioners argued that the law "violates freedom of speech and its cognate rights by imposing a system of prior restraint."
Under the law, SIM card users must register with Public Telecommunications Entities (PTE), or their service providers. Non-registration shall be penalized with deactivation.
Petitioners said the mandatory registration imposes as system of prior restraint as it "conditions the exercises of speech through the use of SIM Cards." Meanwhile the non-disclosure of required information on registration would result in "enforced silence, effectively ‘turning every citizen into a suspected criminal.’"
Chavez v. Gonzalez holds that “[p]rior restraint refers to official governmental restrictions on the press or other forms of expression in advance of actual publication or dissemination.”
"Being prior restraint, it comes to this Court with a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity. The regulation it imposes is content-based not because of the content it impedes (which is everything that passes through a SIM card) but because of the content it compels (the disclosure of one’s identity)," the petition read.
They also stressed before the SC that the petition "tramples upon zones of privacy and sweeps away all protections guaranteed by the Constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures."
The petitioners said that the law’s compelled disclosure—not sanctioned by a search warrant—and the access of law enforcement to said information "constitutes an unreasonable search under the Constitution."
The current deadline for SIM registration is on April 26, but the DICT has earlier said it is mulling extending this. As of April 7, the DICT said 62.17 million SIMs have been registered, which is just 36.79% of the 169.98 million subscribers across the Philippines.
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