MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 3, 2013) – Human rights groups in the Philippines have strongly opposed a twin proposals from the House of Representatives to impose a national identification system and registration of all cell phone SIM cards.
“The twin proposals from the Senate and the House of Representatives – the introduction of a national identification system and the registration of phone SIM cards – are bound to lead to the curtailment of the right to privacy, freedom of expression and other violations of civil and political rights,” Karapatan Secretary-General Cristina Palabay said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
Palabay was referring to Subscribers Identity Module.
Albay Representative Al Francis Bichara filed House Bill No. 11 proposing a national identification system for all Filipino citizens here and abroad purportedly to facilitate and streamline government transactions.
While Senators Teofisto Guingona III, Tito Sotto and Bam Aquino are pushing for the mandatory registration of all phone SIM cards supposedly to prevent criminal activities, citing the recent bombing in Cagayan de Oro City in northern Mindanao.
“Such measures will aggravate the already bleak human rights situation in the country where human rights defenders and political dissenters are subjects of surveillance, threats, illegal arrests and detention, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.”
“The twin proposals seem to have been conspicuously timed when the Aquino administration and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have announced the intensification of their counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan,” Palabay said.
Karapatan said the proposals with such lame and unfounded bases will open the floodgates for the wholesale violation of the people’s civil and political rights. “The line of the proponents that says ‘hindi ka matatakot kung wala kang maling ginagawa’ is but another version of the government’s red tagging and anti-left hysteria,” Palabay said.
She said a more productive response to the need for an efficient system of delivering government service to the people is through the prioritization and allocation of necessary funds for the social services, instead of giving a lion’s share of public funds to the defense sector.
She also said a more comprehensive response to criminal activities should start with the investigation and prosecution of criminal elements mostly in the Philippine National Police itself and those who protect these syndicates.
“The two proposals are so erroneously premised and do not address the main problems,” Palabay said.
The national ID system was also introduced in previous administration, but was met with massive protests from various civil society groups and human rights organizations, saying it can be abused by the state or use it to harass political opponents.
20