Cooperation vs terrorism pushed

Malacañang yesterday called for cooperation in battling terrorism as the world remembered the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

About 20 of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, at the Pentagon and on a plane that crashed in Pennsylvania were Filipinos or of Philippine descent.

“We’ve learned so much from the 9/11 incident. Many Filipinos fell victim to that. During that time we were anxious about the lives of OFWs ( overseas Filipino workers) and migrants in New York… It opened a Pandora’s box on terrorism,” Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said over radio station dzRB.

He also noted that the Philippines was among the places that terrorists considered for bombing operations.

“It developed into something even worse. We now

have extremists like ISIS and Abu Sayyaf. This is a reminder that we’re facing a faceless enemy. Terrorism – we should be one in battling this and we should be helping each other,” Andanar said.

The Sept. 11, 2001 attack was a series of coordinated efforts of the terrorist group alQaeda. Its members hijacked four commercial planes and crashed two at the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 2,996 people and injuring over 6,000 others.

The third plane was crashed at the Pentagon in Virginia while the fourth plane, which was headed towards Washington, crashed in Pennsylvania after some passengers wrestled with the hijackers.

At the recently concluded Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos, President Duterte called for cooperation against international terrorism.

Two days before attending the summit, a night market in Duterte’s home city Davao was bombed, killing at least 14 people and injuring around 60.

The police arrested vice mayor Abdulwahab Sabal of Talitay town in Maguindanao province after an improvised explosive device and several firearms were seized from him and his two bodyguards.

Twelve sachets of shabu, an M-16 rifle and two caliber .45 pistols were among the items taken from the suspects at the Awang airport in Maguindanao.

Sabal was among those earlier identified by Duterte as involved in the illegal drug trade in the country.

The Department of Justice is also looking into Sabal’s involvement in the Davao blast.

Sotto hits ‘telcos’ for refusing SIM card registry

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III yesterday hit telecommunications companies or “telcos” for refusing to register the pre-paid SIM cards for mobile phones that could help the government in fighting criminality and terrorism.

This came after police investigators confirmed that in a number of cases reported, bombers used mobile phones to trigger improvised explosive devices.

Sotto said telcos have been opposing the passage of a bill that seeks to require the registration of mobile phone SIM cards, while the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces are supportive of the proposed measure.

In his bid to neutralize “( mobile) phone- aided crimes in the country,” Sotto proposed the registration of sim cards way back in the 12th Congress as a resolution and refiled it as a bill in the 16th Congress. Now in the 17th Congress, he filed it as Senate Bill 7.

The measure requires all telcos to register their pre-paid SIM cards because criminals and terrorists have been taking advantage of mobile phone technology to remain anonymous.

Under the bill, the National Telecommunications Commission in close coordination with the Department of Trade and Industry and telcos, and in consultation with major consumer groups with national membership shall formulate the necessary guidelines in the proper implementation of the pre-paid SIM card registration process.

The bill also provides that all mobile phone service providers shall require ownership registration as prerequisite to selling pre-paid SIM cards.

The use of pre- paid SIM cards in the country has flourished as these can be purchased practically anywhere by anybody without any required identification and credit background restrictions.

In the Philippines, the subscriber base of pre-paid SIM cards grew dramatically each year, almost reaching an estimated 100 million, which comprise about 90 percent of the entire mobile phone service market.

Sotto said this makes such technology a favored tool in the commission of crimes by both organized and small-scale criminals alike.