DAVAO CITY – A big number of unregistered Filipinos, or those who have no birth certificates comes from Mindanao, an official of the National Statistics Office (NSO) said Thursday.

Carmelita Ericta, NSO administrator, said 10.62 million people from Mindanao, or 12 percent of the 88.57 million people included in the 2007 population census were not registered with local civil registrars (LCRs).

“In Luzon, almost 100 percent of the population already has birth certificates,” she said.

Ericta said a big percentage of these unregistered individuals come from the indigenous peoples groups and Moro tribes.

Sense of identity

She said aside from them, there are also children – including street children – who do not have a sense of identity. She said many of these children are found in Davao City.

Government licensing agencies and schools require birth certificates before the application of an individual is processed.

Ericta said to address the situation, the NSO has been talking with tribal chieftains and Muslim religious leaders in the hope of establishing a civil registry procedure for their people.

Catch-up

“The government is also in touch with nongovernment organizations that work with children to take care of their registration,” she said.

Ericta said part of their catch-up project on late registration is the establishment of mobile registration centers and the barangay civil registration program.

She said these two programs had already been implemented in several areas of Mindanao.

She cited the LCR office here, which she said had been conducting mobile registrations in far-flung barangays, especially in areas populated by the lumad.

“The barangay registrars have gone as far as monitoring the pregnant women in their community so that the mothers would not miss out (on) the registration,” Ericta said.

Ericta also said the NSO is also looking into the registration of Filipinos who were born in Malaysia.

She said many of these individuals would not be allowed to stay in the Philippines because they are also not considered as Filipinos.