Identification

As a young and naïve leftist activist many years ago, I found myself in a demonstration staged against the proposal to build a light commuter rail cutting through the heart of Manila. We formed a phalanx in the middle of Rizal Avenue in Sta. Cruz to show how congested traffic will be if the facility is built.

That was such a stupid protest action. When the commuter rail line was finally built (albeit helped by the power of martial rule), it moved our crazy, unplanned and happily chaotic metropolis an inch closer to modernity. Today, the consensus is we should have built ten commuter lines to relieve the metropolitan area from the choked streets we now endure.

Years later I would understand why the leftist groups were called out to protest the construction of the LRT-1. The mass transport facility was perceived as a threat to the jeepneys. The jeepney drivers were an important component of the left-wing political base. The Left always bases its strategy and tactics on the most parochial concerns, never in the national interest.

Today, government has designed a financing scheme that will enable us to shift from the dirty, inefficient and unhealthy jeepney. The militant jeepney groups aligned with the political Left are, of course, opposing that plan.

More than seventy years after the end of World War II, we are still embracing this irrational relic called the jeepney. Its original design, as we know, dates back to the days of scarcity after the war when we built around the general purpose (Jeeps) vehicles left behind by the US Army.

What was really a consequence of extreme need we celebrated as the icon of Filipino “ingenuity.” What belongs to the museum as a relic of bad, unsafe and uncomfortable design, the militant groups want to keep on the road, the better to congest traffic flow and dirty the air.

But then again, for the political Left, the jeepney drivers are a protected species.

During the mid-nineties, I worked with a team conceptualizing the design for a national identification system. Building that system was necessary as part of the need to build a national database to support a modern passport system. Its use was made all the more attractive by the availability of modern digital technologies, such as laser-backed cards, than may hold information critical during emergencies.

My first idea was to build this national identification system around the voters’ ID card since this system was envisioned to eventually contain biometric information. I pitched the idea to then Comelec chair Bernardo Pardo who found the possibilities interesting.

Later, the various identification cards (SSS/GSIS, the BIR’s TIN, Philhealth, driver’s license and others) could be collapsed into a single card protected by the holder’s password.  This will now be the national ID system. At that time, I proposed that it be called an access card for government services to make it more politically acceptable.

Globally, the national database will enable us to participate in the shift from paper-based passports to fully digitalized passport card to size of ATM cards. That will make ingress and egress through immigrations more efficient.

Today, sadly, we are still debating hiring more immigrations officers to speed up the lines at the airports. These people, who basically rubber stamp paper passports, should have been rendered obsolete in this digital age.

I recalled all these after listening to Labor Secretary Bebot Bello talk about the “IDOL” cards his department will be issuing to our OFWs so that they may easily access benefits they are due. This card, says Bello, could also be used as passports. That is an idea we talked about over 20 years ago.

The idea to start building a national database and identification system was shot down by the leftist party-list representatives during the Ramos administration. They saw this as a tool for “repression.” I saw it as a weapon for citizens to effectively demand their due from the government they elected.

Again, the Left bases its stand on policy issues on the narrowest and most parochial concerns. A national ID system would pose problems for their cadres who rely on anonymity to do their underground work as it enhances law enforcement capacities across the board.

The Left, at that time, even branded the National ID concept an invasion of privacy – and all because it could contain information about blood type, allergies and medical history. Today, with paper-based technologies, the authorities ask useless things like declaring my religion. Now that is truly an invasion of privacy. Why should the State care about how I worship?

As I watch the difficulty in documenting persons displaced by the Marawi conflict, and how checkpoints around the battle zone rely on crude sources of identification to prevent terrorists from escaping, I would only shake my head. If we began work on a national ID system in the nineties, the procedures would have been much easier.

A national database not only makes governance more efficient – such as identifying indigent families worthy of targeted subsidies. It also empowers citizens demanding services government provides.

How can government closely manage 110 million citizens if it could not even identify them?

At some point, we should, as a national community, find the wisdom, the practicality and the necessity to have a national database. That is a precondition for the full achievement of electronic governance.

But then again, if we could not be issued plastic drivers’ licenses and basic car plates to identify our vehicles, should we trust this bureaucracy with managing laser-backed ID cards?