DOJ: Let DICT help in national ID rollout

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos should delegate certain functions of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to accelerate the release of national IDs to Filipinos, which has since met hurdles due to data transfer issues, the Department of Justice (DOJ) suggested.

In a legal opinion written by Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, he said Marcos should issue an executive order reorganizing the Cabinet by transferring some responsibilities of the PSA under the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) Act of 2018 to the DICT to deal with the issues that held back the rollout of national IDs.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin sought Remulla’s opinion after Marcos “expressed his utmost desire to expedite the roll-out of the digital PhilSys ID considering that the law remains not fully implemented despite its enactment five years ago.”

The issuance of 116 million national ID cards has been scheduled for production and delivery since 2021, but as of the end of 2021, only more than 27 million have been delivered. Aside from this, the PSA said last year that it had printed only 3.6 million electronic Philippine IDs (ePhilID). The ePhilID is the digital equivalent of the national ID.

The printing issues were attributed to the “late start of the flow of data and the volume of the data, which is less than what is supposed to be.”

“Thus, to fully realize the objectives of the PhilSys Act, there is a necessity to reorganize the Executive Department, by transferring some of the functions of the PSA under the PhilSys Act to the DICT, for purposes of rolling-out the digital PhilSys ID,” Remulla wrote.

“To do this, the corresponding Executive Order must be issued providing for the same, specifically directing the PSA to grant DICT access to the data needed for producing digital PhilSys IDs,” he added.