By Anna Leah Gonzales | Philippine News Agency
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) aims to put the entire Filipino population onboard the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) by next year.
“For next year, we were instructed to register all,” Emily Pagador, PSA Assistant National Statistician at Use Case Development and Management Service of PhilSys Registry Office, said at the sidelines of this year’s National ID Summit held on Monday at the Novotel Manila in Quezon City.
Pagador said that since the result of this year’s census on population is still not available, the PSA is using the 2020 population which is at 109 million.
For this year, the PSA aims to register 92 million Filipinos to the national ID system.
Pagador said that as of Sept. 7 this year, 89.5 million Filipinos have registered for the national ID.
“Right now, we are able to deliver 55 million physical cards. So we are working on delivering the—for the physical ID—the remaining of that,” she said.
Meanwhile, Pagador said registrants may download their digital national ID and enjoy the benefits of being registered to the national ID system.
She added the PSA is “also working on something to continue the printing of the national ID card,” noting that by law, the PSA is mandated to deliver the physical ID cards to all registrants.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which is tasked to print the physical ID cards, earlier confirmed that it has terminated the contract with AllCard, Inc. (ACI) for the supply, delivery, installation, and commissioning of the Lot 1 lease of card production equipment for national ID cards.
The contract is subject to a pending arbitration between the BSP and ACI.
Pagador said that since the government is pushing for digital transformation, the digital national ID can now be used to confirm registrants’ identity.
“So, in fact, we are pilot testing it now with the Land Bank of the Philippines in East Avenue. If you go there, and you are registered to the national ID, you can actually encash or open an account,” she said.
Last week, the PSA piloted the use of the national ID authentication services at the LandBank East Avenue branch in Quezon City.
The activity aims to demonstrate the practical application of the national ID within the financial sector, specifically in banking scenarios.
This includes verifying the identities of clients who are opening accounts, encashing checks, and making withdrawals using the national ID and registered information in the registry such as biometrics.
The national ID authentication services are also being utilized in other establishments.
At the PSA’s Civil Registry System (CRS) outlet at East Avenue, the biometric authentication application is being used for identity verification of clients processing civil registry documents such as the certificate of live birth, certificate of no marriage, among others.
At the Family Development Sessions (FDS) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries are authenticated through fingerprint scanning, which is equivalent to an attendance to FDS.
