Prompted by an impatient President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. over the snail-paced delivery of national identification cards, the Department of Information and Communications Technology vowed to roll out digital IDs by the end of the year.

In a Palace press briefing on Wednesday, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy admitted that Marcos Jr. has become impatient over the delays in releasing all physical copies of the multi-billion Philippine Identification System or PhilSys IDs.

"There have been a lot of delays, and our countrymen have been complaining that up to this date, they have not received their national IDs," Uy said.

It has been five years after then-President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act 11055, or the Philippine Identification System Act, on 6 August 2018, which will supposedly provide 92 million target Filipinos and resident aliens with a valid proof of identity — the Philippine Identification or PhilID card — to simplify public and private transactions, enrolment in schools, and the opening of bank accounts.

For some reason unacceptable to many, including lawmakers, the delivery of PhilID cards took forever, beyond the target timeline.

The primary agency to carry out the provisions of the law is the Philippine Statistics Authority, which will maintain the national registry for the PhilID and issue the cards to all qualified registrants.

"The President has expressed his impatience because a lot of things need to be done, and they're all dependent on issuing a national ID," Uy added.

The digital ID will be a mobile-based identity system that can be used for various online transactions, including government services, financial services, and e-commerce.

It will feature "leapfrog technology" that will allow improvements in the efficiency and security of online transactions,
"It will also help us reduce fraud and abuse in government programs," he added.

The digital ID will be based on the data the PSA has collected for the national ID system. Uy said the DICT is working with the PSA to ensure the data is clean and accurate.

"We want to make sure the digital ID is a secure and reliable way to verify a person's identity," Uy said, adding that the DICT is targeting to deploy the digital ID to 10 million Filipinos by the end of the year.

He added that the government will provide free access to the digital ID for all Filipinos.

"The digital ID is a critical infrastructure for our digital economy," Uy said. "We want to make sure that everyone has access to it."

No ultimatum

Uy said the President has set no deadline for the finalization of the national ID distribution.

"Well, there hasn't been any ultimatum. We're the ones who set our goal. We only gained access to the database a month or two ago. So, our goal is somewhat ambitious," he said.

The PSA released more than 70 million PhilIDs and ePhilIDs in June 2023.

In a recent official statement, the PSA announced a significant achievement in implementing the PhilSys, with 70,271,330 individuals registered for PhilIDs and ePhilIDs as of 16 June 2023.

The P27.8 billion national ID project earned legislators and citizens' ire over the delay of PhilID cards, substandard print quality, low resolution of ID photos, and personal information errors, among others.

A Commission on Audit report for 2020 and 2021 cited its observations of Department of Finance non-financial issues that read, "the quantity of produced and delivered Philippine Identification cards did not meet the requirement provided in the terms of reference; thus, causing delay to the Philippine Identification System project of the government, intended to streamline the transactions in both the public and private sectors."

The CoA report showed that the total deliveries of pre-personalized cards by the contractor, AllCard, was 27,356,750 pieces, or 76 percent of the annual requirement of 36 million as of December 2021.