National ID system pre-registers 28 million Pinoys

MANILA, Philippines — Some 28 million Filipinos have pre-registered for the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) as the government expands its operations to enlist citizens in the provinces.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the project implementer, said these 28 million Filipinos have already completed the first step of registration for the national ID system.

This step involves the house-to-house collection of demographic information of low-income household heads and appointment setting for the second step.

The PSA said about 17.3 million Filipinos in 81 provinces were pre-registered in the first quarter of 2021 and added to the 10.6 million registrants as of end-2020.

The PSA only started the PhilSys pre-registration process in October last year in 32 provinces that were low-risk areas for the coronavirus disease.

It is targeting to register 70 million Filipinos by end-2021. By end-2022, 92 million Filipinos are supposed to be registered with the PhilSys.

In the coming months, the PSA will launch an online portal for step one registration for the rest of the population.

Meanwhile, operations for the second step continue to roll out on a gradual, small-scale basis in the provinces.

This step involves the validation of supporting documents and capture of biometric information such as fingerprints, iris scans and front-facing photographs at registration centers as per the registrants’ appointments.