Governors, LGUs told to prioritize national ID use

MANILA, Philippines — Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos has ordered all governors, city and municipal mayors, including those in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, to prioritize the Philippine Identification (Phil ID) or the national ID and its electronic format (e-Phil ID) on the list of accepted identification documents.

Abalos issued Memorandum Circular-2024-014 directing all local government units (LGUs) to support the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) as mandated by Republic Act 11055.

“Republic Act 11055, otherwise known as the Philippine Identification System Act, mandates the establishment of a single national identification system to register all Filipinos and resident aliens in the Philippines,” he said.

He added that the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and other partner government agencies are exerting all efforts to ensure that the Phil ID and e-Phil ID are used and considered in the list of valid identification requirements.

“All provincial governors, city and municipal mayors are hereby enjoined to support the implementation of the PhilSys and require the Phil ID and e-Phil ID to be placed on top of the list of accepted of identification documents for various government transactions, including availing government programs,” Abalos said in his memorandum.

PSA chief Dennis Mapa has said that about 81 million Filipinos have already registered with the national ID, with 39.7 million physical IDs delivered to the owners while 40.8 million or half of those registered have digital or e-Phil ID.

Mapa added that the PSA is expected to complete processing all physical national IDs by September.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has lamented that while identification has been expanded to accept barangay clearance, person with disability and senior citizens IDs, the cleaning process of these cards is still not regular as not all LGUs clean up their database.

Gatchalian said that the national ID is not yet accepted at the Land Bank of the Philippines even though it is the government bank.