100,000 Pinoys receive national ID cards

MANILA, Philippines — Some 100,000 national ID cards have been released and shipped to registrants nationwide.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said a total of 103,935 national ID cards printed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas were already delivered by Philippine Postal Corp., the official delivery partner of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys).

Project implementer PSA continues to roll out the third and final step of the national listup, which includes the issuance of PhilSys number and delivery of physical ID cards.

The PSA started delivery of the ID cards last May 1.

“We are looking into ramping up our card production and delivery services in the coming weeks so that more Filipinos will be able to enjoy the benefits of registering to the PhilSys,” national statistician Dennis Mapa said.

Registrants are advised to safe keep the letter enclosed with the ID upon receipt as it contains confidential information.

To protect the permanent PhilSys number when transacting, registrants are encouraged to use the PhilSys Card Number, the public version of the PhilSys number which is printed in front of the ID card.

The PSA called on other government agencies and private establishments to recognize and acknowledge the ID as valid proof of identity in various transactions.

Meanwhile, around 1.05 million Filipinos have registered online for the PhilSys.

The online registration aims to boost the public’s engagement with PhilSys without compromising health and safety protocols. The PSA said it is now upgrading its servers to increase user capacity and enhance site performance.

It is also developing user-management and user-testing strategies to accommodate heavier traffic of registrants accessing the site.

Prior to the online registration, a total of 33.3 million Filipinos have completed the first step of registration via house-to-house collection of demographic data in priority provinces.

Of this, 6.4 million have advanced to the second step which involves the capture of a registrant’s biometric data such as their iris scans, fingerprint scans and front-facing photograph.

At least 70 million Filipinos are expected to be registered by the end of the year. By end-2022, 92 million Filipinos are targeted to be registered with PhilSys.