Senate probe set on national ID failures

MANILA, Philippines — Senators have so many questions on the cancellation of the contract for the production of 116 million national IDs, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said yesterday.

Pimentel said he would file a resolution calling for the Senate to investigate the decision of the Monetary Board (MB) to cancel the contract between the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the private supplier for the printing of national ID cards.

“There are many people who are not happy with the rollout of the national IDs. There are many complaints, like they have applied long ago, and years have passed, but they have yet to get their cards,” Pimentel said in an interview over dwIZ radio.

In a decision issued on Aug. 15, the MB, the BSP’s highest policymaking body, nullified a three-year contract for the supply, delivery, installation and commissioning of card production equipment for 116 million national IDs.

In a letter, BSP Senior Assistant Governor and general counsel Elmore Capule informed private firm AllCard Inc. that the MB had terminated the contract in its entirety, which included the supply of raw materials and spare parts for the production of the PhilID cards.

The target resource persons to be invited to the Senate probe include the BSP, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and AllCard among others, according to Pimentel.

“There are a lot of problems there – I want to know what the root cause of it all was, who hired (the private contractor), how much is the contract, what are the deliverables, what was given, what could not be given, why was it hired and if it could not be delivered, (what is) written in the contract,” he said.

He also noted that there were suggestions to just settle for digital copies of the IDs, but the law provides that printed ID cards should be provided.

“We are told to be happy with the digital copy, but what kind of national ID is that if the cards look different?” he asked.

The Senate minority leader said he had already filed a Senate resolution to look into the delay in the delivery of the national IDs.

For Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, the cancellation of the contract for the printing of national IDs will further delay the program.

“The national ID program can solve many problems, like SIM registration, even the incorporation of documents,” Gatchalian said in a separate interview over dwIZ.

He added that while rolling out physical cards would be delayed, the PSA should not stop there because digital cards are now possible.

“In fact, (cards can be stored) in the phone. When we travel now, we don’t print the boarding pass anymore; it’s all in the cellphone,” Gatchalian said.

“So I think we should use a new technology to still issue our national ID through digital card because that’s what many countries use now, especially if you have an iPhone, just put it in what they call a wallet, you can show that it’s possible. The PSA can still issue digital cards,” he added.

The senator expressed support for Pimentel’s proposal to conduct an inquiry into the issue.