We really need a do-not-call law here in the Philippines.

This do-not-call law covers unsolicited commercial phone calls, text messages, and email messages on personal or work phones, mobile phones, or email addresses. There shall be a national database of phone numbers and email addresses, to be maintained by the Department of Trade, and accessible by businesses so that they will not call, text, or email the said numbers and addresses.

The telecommunications carriers shall be required to issue phones with caller ID capabilities (and if possible, recording capabilities as well). This is to make sure that call recipients can take note of calls, specially when the call is unsolicited and commercial in nature.

Unsolicited calls/text/email refer to calls made by an entity to a person to offer loans, credit cards, jobs, or other promotions that are not sought for by that person; asking for donations and other forms of charity are also included. Calls made for verification purposes (like for valid credit card and loan applications) are considered solicited and as such should not be covered by this proposed law.

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Heaven knows how many man-minutes, electricity charges, and bandwidth are wasted by these unsolicited calls. They can also be annoying. Aside from that, these unsolicited calls are violations of privacy.

And oh, selling databases of contact details should be outlawed, too – violation of privacy.

I had a post about my annoyance with these unsolicited calls. Have you received unsolicited calls before? Do you think we should have a do-not-call law?