Government stands to suffer huge financial losses and technical failure should the Philippine Statistics Authority allow a Dutch firm help implement the national identification system, according to an information and communications technology expert.
At a media briefing in Quezon City, Rafael Gutierrez, a graduate of the University of the Philippines, raised concern about the lack of integrity of the project’s lowest bidder—the consortium of Nextix Inc., a subsidiary of Gemalto NV—to be the primary supplier for the national ID system at a cost of P1.2 billion only.
“To award Gemalto the national ID contract could just be repeating the technical failure wrought upon the Commission on Elections last May 13,” he told the Manila Standard.
Gutierrez is a Philippine representative of a United States of America’s web security and cloud-based solutions company.
“Because Gemalto is the lowest bidder, it is most likely that it would be chosen to implement the national ID system. PSA is now in the post-qualification process,” he said, citing “President Rodrigo Duterte wanted to remove the ‘lowest bid rule in government procurement since it could only be a source of corruption.”
“The public must know what actually happened in the last May 13 polls,” Gutierrez said.
“To choose the lowest bid could lead to a bad supplier and inferior project,” he added.
At least 68.14 percent of Gemalto’s voter registration verification machines failed and reportedly caused too much delay in the voting process.
The voters were not able to log in using the firm’s smartcard or password.
Even Manila mayoral bet Alfredo Lim experienced a breakdown of the VRVM while voting last May 13.
“If we use the same IT company that failed us during the recent elections, we could be facing a big risk in the implementation of the national ID system,” Gutierrez said.
Many registered voters were not able to log in using the firm’s smartcard or password.
The corporate consortium of Nextix and Gemalto submitted the lowest bid of P1,188,888 last May 29, followed by Dermalog and Microgenesis at P1,277,942,614.16.
The bidding is now in the post-qualification stage of evaluation of the participants’ financial and technical capability.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the government was set to pilot test the national ID system from September to December.
A “substantial” number of Filipinos shall be registered for the initial run of the system that aims to cover 107-million Filipinos by the end of the President’s term in 2022.
Last August 2018, the President signed The Philippine System Identification Act paving the way for a national ID system.