NEDA hopes all Pinoys get national ID by yearend

MANILA, Philippines — The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) expressed hope yesterday that all Filipinos would get their national IDs by yearend as it assured the public that efforts are underway to address the issues that delayed the project.

NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said it is important to complete the project because it would reduce transaction costs and allow the government to save a lot of resources from its aid programs.

“I think we are more than halfway in the physical IDs but we want to speed up the digital IDs. We hope before the end of the year, everyone will have a digital ID,” Balisacan said at a press briefing at Malacañang.

“No less than the President has been monitoring the completion of this project. There have been some delays but the problems are being addressed,” he added.

Balisacan explained that the previous thrust was to distribute physical IDs, but the pandemic “changed the whole game” and people now want a digital version of the identification document.

“We realized that we should first make those digital IDs so that anyone who has a phone can already use the ID and that is now the primary responsibility of the DICT,” he said.

According to Balisacan, there is now an agreement transferring the provision of the digital ID to the Department of Information and Communications Technology and allowing the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to continue with its physical ID production and distribution.

He said the digital ID would benefit the government’s aid programs as it would prevent the duplication of benefits, ghost beneficiaries and other similar problems.

“Each one of us will have a unique ID, unique number and you can no longer tamper with that,” the NEDA secretary said.

In 2018, former president Rodrigo Duterte signed the Philippine Identification System Act, which aims to establish a single national identification system for the citizens and resident aliens of the Philippines.

The proof of identity was intended to simplify public and private transactions, access social services and promote financial inclusion.

More than 80 million Filipinos had registered to the Philippine Identification System as of July 11. The PSA aims to print 50 million physical IDs by the end of the year.