The Philippine Postal Corporation (PHLPost) has delivered some 312,526 Philippine Identification (PhilID) cards to registrants in the Ilocos Region as of October 27.
Camille Carla Beltran, Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Ilocos Region civil registration and administrative support division officer-in-charge, said of the total number, 52 were sent to Ilocos Norte, 100,887 to Ilocos Sur, 109,651 to La Union, and 101,936 to Pangasinan.
“The number includes those returned to sender due to either the registrant having passed away or has moved out of his or her residence,” she said in a media forum on Wednesday.
Beltran said the delay in the delivery of some of the PhilIDs to successful registrants to the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) might be due to double registration or duplication so they need to validate the records at PSA.
She said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, as the lead in the printing of the PhilIDs, is doing its best to hasten the process.
“The personnel’s day-offs were already suspended to be able to cope with the demand. The machine prints 80,000 IDs daily hence one day off would cost 80,000 printed IDs, but they are appealing for a Christmas break,” she added.
The PSA is discouraging the public from posting their PhilSys cards online or lending them to other people.
“It may be copied or falsified especially the PhilSys number, which is unique in every individual. So beware of posting online or lending it to other people,” Beltran said.
She said the PhilSys card does not have the signature of the individual bearer to prevent the forging of signatures.
“We had a memorandum of agreement with some national government agencies who would honor the PhilSys card as a valid identification card even in the absence of the signature of the bearer while we are working on the acceptance of other institutions,” she added.
Meanwhile, there are now a total of 2.5 million registrants in the PhilSys Step 2 in the Ilocos Region as of October 31 this year.
Beltran said 164,000 of them were from Ilocos Norte, 400,000 from Ilocos Sur, 447,000 from La Union, and 1.49 million from Pangasinan.
PSA Pangasinan chief statistical specialist Edgar Norberte said they target to register over 2.2 million in Pangasinan to attain the 100 percent PhilSys registration before the year ends.
“We are already conducting PhilSys Step 2 registration in the barangays for the five to 17 years old population,” he said.
Step 2 involves the actual sign up which includes the validation of demographic information and capture of fingerprint, iris, and face images at PhilSys registration centers.
Signed into law by President Rodrigo R. Duterte in August 2018, Republic Act 11055, or the Philippine Identification System Act, aims to establish a single national ID for all Filipinos and resident aliens.
The national ID shall be a valid proof of identity that shall be a means of simplifying public and private transactions, enrolment in schools, and the opening of bank accounts.
It also seeks to boost efficiency, especially in dealing with government services where people will only need to present one ID during transactions.
Source: Philippines News Agency
