EDITORIAL - Not while national ID is a mess

If Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno can have his way, only those people who have national ID cards should be allowed to receive financial aid from the government.

“We are thinking along the lines of maybe limiting the beneficiaries to those who have national ID,” he said in an online news report.

Diokno cites two reasons in justifying his suggestion. First, it is one way to prevent unscrupulous individuals from getting the financial aid they don’t deserve. Second, it is one way of convincing people to get the national ID.

We agree with his need to plug the “leaks” of the financial aid system. Aside from the dishonest people who aren’t entitled to government financial aid, there are “enterprising” individuals who, though entitled to financial assistance, are able to abuse the system by receiving it more than once at a time.

We also see the need for a national ID system. It tends to simply identifying someone. With a national ID there will be no more need for different kinds of IDs or documents to prove one’s identity.

However, we don’t agree with limiting financial aid to only those who have a national ID. At least not right now.

Because until now the national ID still has kinks that have yet to be ironed out. There are still many who are still waiting for their ID despite already providing their information and biometrics months ago. There is still no word of when or even if their IDs will arrive.

Of course, we are sure that the system will get better the more established it becomes, the more people use it, and the more government offices and private establishments accept it.

But as it is right now, it’s far from perfect. Aside from the unexplained delays, there are complaints about blurry and funny-looking photos and erroneous entries in some national ID cards.

Limiting financial aid to those who have national IDs would be unfair to those who actually deserve help but have not yet applied --or are still waiting, hopefully not in vain for their national IDs.