Where have all the national IDs gone?
Registering 74.28 million Filipinos in the PhilSys more than two months before the year ends, representing 80 percent of the target, deserves a pat on the back, but the delivery of their IDs doesn’t.
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Registering 74.28 million Filipinos in the PhilSys more than two months before the year ends, representing 80 percent of the target, deserves a pat on the back, but the delivery of their IDs doesn’t.
The rollout of the national ID system was off to a good start when the implementing rules and regulations were approved 60 days after Republic Act 11055, otherwise known as the "Philippine Identification System Act," was signed into law on 6 August 2018, aimed at establishing a single national identification for all citizens and resident aliens of the country.
Due to the public health emergency brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippine Statistics Authority — the lead PhilySys implementor — moved the mass registration from July to October 2020.
Despite the postponement, PSA reported that 50,014,382 Filipinos completed their Step 2 Registration as of 11 December 2021 — hitting the target for 2021. It was a good start, indeed.
The year 2022 for PhilSys is a different story. PSA reported that as of early July 2022, 14.3 million physical cards had been delivered. The target though is 36.4 million cards delivered by June 2022.
The Philippine Postal Corporation said it has been doing its job and has delivered more than 13.7 million PhilSys IDs nationwide as of 13 July 2022, which is equivalent to 94 percent of the 14.3 million ID cards turned over to them by the PSA for dispatch.
It makes sense that PhilPost only delivers what they receive, in fact, they work within the 30-day policy to deliver the Philsys ID in far-flung areas in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The PSA and PhilPost figure, for some reason, does not reconcile with that of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas which was engaged by the PSA to produce the PhilID cards.
Data from the Commission on Audit showed the BSP delivered 27,356,750 pre-personalized cards as of 31 December 2021, or 76 percent of the 36 million required number of IDs for last year.
Where are the 13 million ID cards that did not reach PSA and PhilPost?
Given that the total actual deliveries of pre-personalized cards by BSP's contractor, AllCard Inc., was 27,356,750 pieces or 76 percent of the annual requirement of 36 million as of the end of December 2021, the figure obviously falls short of the 36 million annual delivery requirement.
Mandated to deliver 110 million pre-personalized IDs from 2021 to 2023, CoA's findings further showed that for the years 2020 and 2021, the BSP only managed to deliver 8,764,556 personalized cards before 2021, accounting for a measly 17.53 percent of the 50 million required number of IDs for said the years.
As of 14 October though, PSA chief Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said 8.2 million more PhilID cards have been turned over to PhilPost, or a total of 22.55 million since the printed ID rollout — still below the requirement.
Registering 74.28 million Filipinos in the PhilSys more than two months before the year ends, representing 80 percent of the target, deserves a pat on the back, but the delivery of their IDs doesn't.
Neither blaming the unexpected influx of registrants for the delay in the printing of national ID cards makes sense because the PhilSys project has been planned and managed as early as late 2018 with targets and expectations well understood in the agreed timeline.
To blame the high volume of registrants veers away from the root cause of the delayed delivery of ID cards — that is the ineptitude of the supplier and contract management.
The evenly spaced deadlines, if professionally followed, could have led to a higher level of quality and on-time completion of complex tasks like the PhilSys project. It could have managed expectations and avoided disappointment.
Bagong Henerasyon Partylist Representative Bernadette Herrera did a wise move in filing House Resolution 471 urging an in-depth investigation into the alleged "inefficient, delayed, and faulty" rollout of the national ID system, and "establishment of an accountability mechanism to allow a closer look into what went wrong, or what may still be improved" in the project implementation.
In the words of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, "Well begun is half done."
The time is just now to make up and catch up with the good start. Accelerating the implementation of the PhilSys project is tantamount to hastening the delivery of basic services.
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