President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has become impatient over the long-delayed release of the national IDs or the Philippine Identification System IDs (PhilIDs), the Department of Information and Communications Technology admitted on Wednesday.
“So, a lot of delays have already happened and there are many of our countrymen who have been complaining that up to this date, they have not yet received their national ID,” said DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy during a press briefing in Malacañang.
President Marcos led a sectoral meeting last September 12, discussing the issuance of the digital version of national IDs or ePhilIDs.
“The President has expressed his impatience because a lot of things needed to be done and it’s all dependent on the deployment of a national ID,” Uy added.
THE DICT expects to issue some 80 million digital version of the national identifications before yearend.
Uy said even Mr. Marcos has become impatient over the protracted delay in the issuance of the national IDs, but gave no ultimate deadline on the matter.
“No ultimatum was given. We just set our own goal. I think, we were only given access to the database just a month or two months ago. So, our goal may be a bit ambitious because it was only last July that we had access, and we are hoping that by yearend, we will be able to deploy the national IDs,” Uy said.
“It took four years for the PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) to distribute, and they are not yet finished. We’re very optimistic, I believe in the capabilities of our people to do that,” he added.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan announced last month that the DICT would oversee the production of the e-PhilIDs.
So far, Uy indicated that information on some 80 million people have already been in their data with the help of the PSA.
“I think they have captured about 80 million identities already and it’s in their database. So, for us to be able to convert it to a digital format, we needed access to that database so that we can deploy it on a digital platform,” Uy said.
“So, that was the discussion and that was where we reported to the President as to how we are going to adopt it on a digital platform so that it can eventually be used for all our online transactions,” he added.
Asked if the Philippines is now on a shift towards digital ID, Uy explained that the release of the digital IDs would be parallel to the physical IDs as they will still be printed.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’re doing this in parallel because the public has grown impatient… I think four years or five years delay.
The public has grown impatient, and they don’t want to wait forever to get the physical ID, so we decided on a parallel move,” Uy said.
He vowed that the DICT would do its best to release soon the digital versions of the national IDs.
“So, while they’re taking their time to do the physical printed ID, ay we will also deploy our digital ID which is much faster. Our objective is to give our countrymen a nice Christmas gift,” Uy said.
The PSA has so far issued over 70 million Philippine Identification System IDs (PhilIDs) and ePhilIDs as of June 2023.
In a statement, the PSA said it reached another milestone in implementing the PhilSys with 70,271,330 registered persons under the PhilIDs and ePhilIDs as of June 16.