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PSA says more funds needed for 36 million National ID backlog
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) announced Thursday that it needs additional funds to clear the backlog of 36 million National ID cards this year. So far, the PSA has distributed over 55 million IDs out of the 91.7 million registrants by the end of 2024. “We are working on decentralized printing and hope to eliminate the backlog if given more budget since our approved National Expenditure Program (NEP) cannot fully support printing these 36 million cards,” said Deputy National Statistician Rosalinda Bautista during an event in Quezon City. She also noted that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has yet to secure a new supplier for physical ID cards after terminating its contract with AllCard Incorporated in August last year due to alleged non-compliance.
Bautista admitted that the backlog in physical cards may have discouraged some Filipinos from registering with the Philippine Identification System. The agency fell short of its 92 million target number of registrants in 2024. However, she reiterated that the national ID can be acquired in other formats.
“May ginawa kaming paraan. If they are truly registered, they can get their ePhilID. At the same time, meron din kaming digital national ID. Pero siyempre marami pa ring naghahanap na gusto talaga nila card,” said Bautista.
She added that the series of storms that hit the country last year also affected onsite registrations.
“Alam naman natin ilang regions ang affected ng sunud-sunod na bagyo. Kapag nagsuspinde ang work, registration basically also stops,” she said.
Meanwhile, the PSA also signed a new partnership with BPO firm Pilipinas Teleserv which operates the PSA helpline— an online portal for application and delivery of civil registry documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, CENOMAR, and death certificates.
This marks the integration of the national ID database into the PSA Helpline system for easier but still secure verification of the identity of applicants and document recipients.
“Ngayon, ang ginagawa natin ang courier ang humihingi ng proof of identity of the document owner. And kita naman natin the way things are delivered, minsan madalian. They have so much load so they really have to deliver as fast as they can. May mga slip-ups na nangyari,” said Pilipinas Teleserv Managing Director Jun Yupitun.
“With this integration, if they upload a national ID before they make the application with us, we verify their personality. When you register for a national ID, they capture your photo, iris, other facial biometric. That’s what we use to validate,” he added.
Moving forward, the PSA said it is working on having the national ID database integrated into the systems of more government agencies so that even the acquisition of documents like passports can be made more convenient.
“Kailangan kaming mas aggressive dito sa aming campaign not only for local government units, other national government (agencies) but also yung private sector,” said Bautista.
Source via ABS-CBN News
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