72% of registered SIM card owners found process easy — SWS
MANILA, Philippines — A large majority of Filipinos who had registered their SIM cards considered the process easy, a survey of the Social Weather Stations suggested.
The survey, which was conducted on March 26 to 29 but was only released Wednesday evening, found that 56% of adult SIM card owners had registered their SIM cards, while 44% have yet to do so.
SWS did the survey a month before the initial deadline to comply with the SIM Registration Act. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved on April 25 a 90-day extension of SIM card registration.
Of those who had registered their SIM cards, 72% considered the process easy. Broken down, 44% of the respondents said the process was “very easy”, while 28% said it was “somewhat easy.” Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed considered the process to be hard.
According to the survey, SIM card registration was highest in Visayas at 64%, followed by Metro Manila at 62%, Balance Luzon at 55%, and Mindanao at 50%.
Information and Communications Technology Secretary Ivan John Uy said last week that about 82 million SIM cards had been registered. Of those, more than 37 million are Globe subscribers, 39 million are Smart subscribers, and over five million are DITO subscribers.
Marcos signed in October last year a law requiring Filipinos to register their SIM cards, a move that is seen by the government to curb scams and other crimes. Critics of the measure, however, say this could lead to data breaches and privacy violations
73% own at least one phone
The SWS poll also found that 73% of adult Filipinos own at least one cell phone—93% own one cell phone, 5% own two cell phones, and 1% own three to four cell phones.
Thirty percent of mobile phone owners use Touch Mobile (TM), 26% use Talk N’ Text, 25% use Globe, 23% use Smart, 2% use DITO, and 1% use Sun Cellular.
Among cell phone owners, 80% use one SIM card, 18% use two SIM cards, and 1% use either three or four SIM cards.
SWS said that cell phone ownership was highest in Metro Manila at 83%, followed by Balance Luzon at 78%, Mindanao at 68%, and Visayas at 61%.
It was higher in urban areas (80%) than in rural areas (64%).
The percentage of those who own a mobile phone rises with education, the pollster noted.
It was 37% among those who either had no formal education or some elementary education, 62% among those who either finished elementary or had some high school education, 82% among those who either finished junior high school or had some vocational schooling, 90% among those who either had some senior high school, finished senior high school, completed vocational school, or attended some college, and 97% among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies.
The SWS survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults. The sampling error margins are ±2.5% for national percentages, ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao, and ±4.0% for Balance Luzon. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
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