EDITORIAL - Faster ID rollout

The past two years of pandemic-induced hardships showed the importance of a national identification system in the speedy and efficient delivery of social amelioration programs. As the World Bank has noted, the lack of a national ID system in the country delayed the rollout of the SAP or ayuda to the most vulnerable sectors.

It’s been four years since Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act 11055 or the Philippine Identification System Act. PhilSys aims to promote financial inclusion and create a central database that facilitates development planning, targeted assistance and transactions with the government.

As the country moves to recover from the COVID pandemic, the PhilSys ID can be used to obtain bank loans for setting up even micro enterprises, notably from the Land Bank of the Philippines. The national ID is intended to eventually replace all other government-issued IDs except the passport, driver’s license and Unified Multipurpose ID.

The Philippine Postal Corp. reported that as of July 13, over 13.7 million PhilSys IDs had been delivered nationwide. The target for 2022 is 33.8 million, which is not even half of the 92 million registrants targeted for this year. President Marcos reportedly wants the delivery of all the ID cards completed by early 2023.

Beyond the physical ID card, the World Bank is stressing the importance of providing the option for using the PhilSys as a mobile ID or QR code.

With the President ordering the release of the PhilSys ID fast-tracked, all national and local government agencies must also speed up the pace of preparations for the rollout of the system.

PhilSys must be integrated into government agencies’ databases, processes, systems and services, and interconnectivity must be seamless. This cannot be as disastrous as the StaySafe.PH COVID contact tracing app that never got off the ground throughout the pandemic, forcing several local government units to roll out their own digital apps for their COVID response. The last thing the pandemic-battered economy needs is more confusion and inefficiency in recovery efforts.