The Philippine Statistics Authority on Friday (October 2) gave an update regarding the much-awaited registration for the national ID system that had been postponed earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The authority announced that the first phase of the mass registration for the National ID System is set to begin on October 12.
Nat’l ID Pre-Registration for Low-Income Households to Begin on October 12 – PSA
According to PSA Assistant Secretary Rosalinda Bautista, the first step of the registration will be the house-to-house visit of selected pre-registrants to get their information and to schedule a date for them to visit the registration center, the Philippine Star reported.
Bautista noted that the selected pre-registrants are the heads of 5 million low-income households, identified through data provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. She added that pre-registering these individuals will reduce their waiting time when they go to registration centers for Step 2 of the process.
Republic Act No. 11055 or the Philippine Identification System Act, which had been enacted in 2019, provides the legal basis for the national ID program, a key social project of the Duterte administration which aims to provide the government with more accurate information on its citizens to better target public projects.
As per Bautista, the National ID system is expected to hasten transactions in both the public and private sectors, enrollment in schools, and the opening of bank accounts.
Explaining why low-income households are prioritized, Bautista said in Filipino: “Because, chances are, they do not have bank accounts yet. What the government wants, hopefully, is that when aid is given, it passes through a bank account so that the distribution of financial aid is quickly processed.”
For the next step, the same pre-registrants will have their biometric captured starting November 25. Bautista also shared that the PSA is coordinating with local government units to ensure that registration centers are close to areas with high concentrations of low-income families.
In line with this, Bautista clarified that there will be no fees for both the registration process and the ID issued.
“In addition to the 5 million household heads, we will also schedule a member of the family which will reach close to 4 million,” she continued.
For the remainder of the year, the PSA aims to pre-register up to 9 million people – 5 million of whom will also have their biometrics captured before the year is out.
Following this process, Bautista noted that by 2021 the authority will have registered 45 million Filipinos and by 2022, another 42 million. So by the end of the term of President Duterte, the PSA projects that they would have already registered the majority of the residents of the Philippines.
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