The Philippine Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia has called for faster movement on the establishment of data centres in order to accommodate the increased number of registrants in the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) starting next year.
According to a recent press release, the data centres should be in place right now or at least by December, in order for them to be usable by early January 2020.
There is a need to act more swiftly and ensure that there will be no delays in the implementation of the National ID. The goal is to complete the entire process schedule by mid-2022.
The Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) Policy and Coordinating Council (PSPCC), which is chaired by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), met recently.
PhilSys Pilot Test
- The meeting was scheduled so that they can discuss the early results of the pilot test registration held in September as well as identify the potential bottlenecks and issues to be addressed.
- A total of 525 select individuals from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) beneficiaries and Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) employees were registered during the pilot test registration conducted from 2 -25 September 2019.
- Based on the results from the pilot test, the PSPCC discussed ways to further reduce the processing time to avoid making people wait too long.
- The processing involves screening, demographic and biometric capturing, and printing of transaction slip.
- PSA Undersecretary and National Statistician Dennis Mapa said they will be expanding the number of registrants for the November to December rounds to capture more data.
- They will focus on developing better queuing strategies, particularly for registrants ages 60 and above before the official exponential rollout by June 2020.
Philippines National ID Card
For card production, PSA recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
OpenGov Asia recently reported on Philippine Government Agencies Sign MOA for National ID Production.
Under the agreement, PSA will take charge of several tasks. These are:
- Database management
- The accuracy of the personal information to be placed in Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-produced blank cards
- Undertaking the personalisation, quality checking, and distribution of the IDs.
Government agencies must collaborate and help hasten the implementation of PhilSys especially since implementing a secure national ID system is a complex process.
The agencies are urged to overcome bureaucratic red tape as this is precisely what the PhilSys ID wants to reduce.
Budget is limited and government procedures, rules, and regulations are very restrictive.
However, it is incumbent for the agencies to discover new ways of doing things for efficiency and to make transactions hassle-free for citizens.
The series of pilot test registrations will run from September 2019 until May 2020 before the mass registration scheduled in June 2020.
The PSA aims to register almost all Filipinos in the PhilSys by mid-2022.
The PSPCC was organised under RA 11055, or the Philippine Identification System Act, “to formulate policies and guidelines to ensure effective coordination and implementation of the PhilSys.”