Pilot run of Phil ID for House lawmakers, personnel set

PNA | November 23, 2019

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is targeting the registration of about 4,300 individuals from the
House of Representatives for the pilot testing of the Phil ID, the national ID under the Philippine
Identification System (PhilSys), in November and December.

The target registrants for the Philsys ID include 304 lawmakers, their staff, and other employees of the
House.

The pilot-testing will be held at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City on November 25-28 and on
December 2-5, which will start from 9 a.m up to 5 p.m.

The congressmen, as well as priority individuals like senior citizens, pregnant women, and persons with
disabilities, will register at Laurel Hall.

Meanwhile, registration for congressional staff and employees will be at Makalintal or Aquino Hall.

A total of 15 registration kits will be installed at the Makalintal or Aquino Hall, while the remaining five
will be set up at Laurel Hall.

About six screeners, 20 encoders, roughly six information technology support staff, four supervisors, and
four monitoring and evaluation officers from the PhilSys Registry Office will be deployed to man the
mobile registration centers.

The pilot-testing at the House of Representatives is meant to assess the registration process to ensure
seamless implementation during the massive rollout.

Republic Act (RA) 11055 or the PhilSys Act mandates the issuance of a national ID that will serve as a
valid proof of identity for all Filipino citizens and resident aliens.

The national ID, which will be given for free, will eventually replace all other government-issued IDs,
except the passport, driver’s license, and UMID ID.

The PhilSys will collate the Phil ID holder’s full name, sex, date and place of birth, blood type, and
address. It will also indicate if a person is a Filipino or a resident alien.

The Phil ID will also contain the holder’s front-facing photo, full set of fingerprints, and an iris scan.

The disclosure of one’s marital status, mobile number, and electronic mail address is optional.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed RA 11055 in August 2018 to make government and private
transactions simpler and faster.

The law tasks PSA as the implementing agency responsible for the overall planning, management, and
administration of PhilSys, the government’s central platform for all citizen and resident aliens of the
Philippines.

The PSA and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier signed a memorandum of agreement, designating
the central bank to produce within three years 116 million cards that will have security features.

Pilot test registration will end in June 2020, while mass registration will begin by July 2020. Overseas
Filipinos are targeted to be registered in 2021.

National ID issuance to start April 2020

DISTRIBUTION OF identification cards under the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) will start by
April next year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno announced.

“The card issuance will start in April 2020,” he said on Oct. 17 at a roundtable discussion during the
World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings held in Washington D.C. Mr.
Diokno touted PhilSys as an important tool in the central bank’s financial inclusion agenda by providing
an ID to all Filipinos, especially those in remote and underserved areas.
“With the ‘Philippine ID,’ unbanked Filipinos will have a proof of identity which is a key requirement in
opening a bank account…This will enable more of our marginalized countrymen to enjoy gains from and
participate more actively in the country’s growing economy,” he said.

A BSP survey indicates that 52.8 million adults, or over 70% of the Filipino population, do not have an
account with a bank or any other financial institution as of 2017.

PhilSys is authorized through Republic Act. No. 11055 or the Philippine Identification System Act, which
establishes a unified identification system for both Filipinos and resident aliens.

DISTRIBUTION

Last Oct. 7, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the
BSP for the production of 116 million blank cards over a three-year period.

“We will print the ID at less than $1 a piece — 60 cents to be exact. We will provide the needed
equipment and space for the embedding of personal information onto the blank cards, which will be
done by the PSA,” Mr. Diokno explained during the roundtable discussion on Championing and
Accelerating Good Digital ID for all.

PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa told reporters during the MOA signing that they target to
issue up to 15 million IDs in 2020, 50 million in 2021, and the remainder by 2022.

The PSA official also said that the pilot-testing for the registration, which started in September, shows
that the documentation time per person is shorter than expected at 15 minutes, though senior citizens
might take longer.

The ID will be issued for free.

“The journey for a national ID for the Philippines started 30 years ago. But it failed to pass one Congress
after another. Finally last year, the Philippine ID System Act was passed last year,” Mr. Diokno said.

National ID system to benefit farmers, fisherfolk

About 16.3 million Filipinos who don’t have any proof of identity according to the World Bank’s
Identification for Development Initiative are expected to benefit from the first batch of registration for
the implementation of the National ID System Law.

“The Philippine Identification System Act (Republic Act 11055) is very good because our farmers and
fishermen can now seek government help and avail of bank loans. They will no longer be victimized by
loan sharks and five-six for their operations,” said Laguna Rep. Sol Aragones.

The lack of an official ID, according to the World Bank, hinders these farmers and fishermen from
remote areas nationwide to avail of government aid and other services.

It was Aragones’ House committee on population and family relations that spearheaded the passage in
August 2018 of the PhilSys Act during the 17th Congress that President Duterte signed into law.

Aragones said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, in partnership with the Philippine Statistics Authority, has
set aside P3.4 billion for the production of 116 million blank cards, or a cost of P30 per card.

The IDs will be issued until 2022, and the total projected cost is P30 billion.

Aragones, a former broadcast journalist, expressed optimism that the rollout of the national ID system
will curb corruption in the bureaucracy.

The PhilSys law simplifies the processes for services offered both by the government and private
companies since only one ID would be required instead of the usual two. Millions of Filipinos do not
have two IDs.

“This development would weed out possible corruption and ensure that the IDs are rolled out sooner.
This is great news so that we can implement the PhilSys law as soon as possible,” she said.

Last March, PSA deputy national statistician Lourdines dela Cruz said they are initially targeting about six
million individuals, and those eligible to register are Filipinos and resident aliens at least five years old.
Information to be gathered for the ID will include biometrics (thumbprint, iris and face scanning), full
name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, blood type, address and if one is a Filipino or resident alien.

Information about marital status, mobile number and email address are optional.?After the registration,
which is free of charge, the registrant will be given his/her permanent PhilSys number. The
corresponding card will be issued a few days later after information is authenticated.

The card will serve as the single identification system for all Filipino citizens and resident aliens and aims
to eliminate the need to present other forms of identification when transacting with the government
and private sector.?Dela Cruz said they are targeting that by 2022, they would have issued 100 million
cards to Filipinos and resident aliens.

Recto laments lack of funding for national ID implementation

Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto on Tuesday lamented the lack of funding for the
implementation of the National Identification System law.

According to Recto, Congress was assured when the law was passed two years previously that funds
would be provided for the fulfillment of the plan which would cover 100 million Filipinos in 4 years.

“But it now appears that there’s a wide gap between intent and implementation. The proof has always
been in the funding. And in the case of the national ID project, it is wanting,” the senator said in a press
statement.

Recto added that during the plenary deliberation on the National Economic and Development
Authority's budget, when he had asked how many IDs had so far been issued, Finance Committee
Chairman Senator Juan Edgardo Angara replied, “Zero.”

As for 2020, there was zero funding for the project in the “programmed portion” of the proposed
national budget.

Recto said what was provided was a P2.4 billion “unprogrammed appropriation,” which, at best, was a
tentative allocation dependent on whether new loans or revenue could be raised.

“But even if the P2.4 billion will materialize, it is only about 42 percent of what is needed to fully meet
the project’s objectives and deliverables next year. So instead of 14 million Filipinos, less than half, or
6.3 million, will be registered in 2020,” he said.

This would also lead to a series of delays that would affect the project’s timetable, which was supposed
to have 14 million people enrolled in 2020; 52 million in 2021, including 5 million overseas Filipinos; and
44 million local residents plus 5 million overseas Filipinos in 2022.

Recto said that the tunnel-end vision was to register 110 million Filipino citizens and resident aliens and
10 million Filipinos abroad in what was officially called the PhilSys by 2022 and to meet this deadline, 4.3
million registrants must be processed every month by the 5,000 registration kits placed in mobile and
fixed registration centers.

“But if the critical purchases in the early stage of implementation will not push through for budget lack,
then future registration quotas will not be met. The 2020 scheduled procurement lays the foundation
for the project. Without this, the project is crippled, the rollout derailed, its future jeopardized,” he
complained.

Recto pointed out that from a government budgeting point of view, the national ID project, which
covers the grant of digital credentials to citizens, was needed to prevent leakages and fraud in the
implementation of various multibillion-peso social programs such as 4Ps, Universal Health Care, and
senior pensions.

Lacson wants P5-B greening fund realigned to ID system

Why not transfer the P5-billion allocation for the government’s National Greening Program (NGP) to the
implementation of the national ID system?
Sen. Panfilo Lacson raised this suggestion on Tuesday during the Senate deliberations on the proposed
P4.1 trillion national budget for 2020.

Lacson underscored the importance of having a national ID system, saying it was a form of public service
that would “expedite a lot of transactions.”

“Even in the revenue collection, you can use this as a weapon,” he said.

The government would need P25 billion to fully implement the national ID system, Lacson said.

Sen. Sonny Angara, who defended the proposed budget, said that 97% of the P4 billion in appropriations
allocated for the national ID system in 2018 and 2019, had already been obligated.

“There’s a requirement for 2020…in the amount of P5.65 billion. Assuming that we can fund the
additional 5.65 billion, only 14 million Filipinos will and residents can be covered,” Lacson, speaking
partly in Filipino, then said.

But Lacson said that, under the General Appropriations Act, only P2.4 billion was allocated for the
implementation of the national ID system.

“There’s a gap of P3.2 billion,” he pointed out.

“So if the P2 billion can only cover 6.3 million Filipinos, can you find a way to complete the requirement
of 5.65 billion to cover 14 million?” Lacson added.

He then suggested that the gap could be funded by the P5-billion appropriation meant for the National
Greening Program.

“We have a recurring expenditure in the National Greening (Program), year in and year out, for the past
eight years, and we have already appropriated more than P33 billion. The question is: Where are the
trees? We don’t see any greens. In spite of the continuous appropriation of P33 billion,” Lacson said.

The NGP is a government program launched in 2011 which sought to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million
hectares in six years.

“In 2020, there was going to be more than P5 billion. If we still can’t get trees, maybe we put the
allocation on the national ID system. Is it okay for the DBM to realign the P5 billion so it can be used to
fund the national ID?” Lacson said.

Angara responded positively to Lacson’s suggestion but said that the panel would have to first consult
with Sen. Cynthia Villar, finance sub-committee vice chairperson.

“We’re open to that…we’ll just consult the sub-committee vice chairperson, Senator Villar, and let’s
prioritize it,” Angara said,

Villar also chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform.

In response, Lacson said: “It’s better that we prioritize the national ID system now. It’s more worthwhile
than the National Greening Program that’s not really even green.”