PSA targets registration of 45 million Filipinos for nat’l ID system in 2021 — NEDA

IDENTITY CARD The Philippine Statistics Authority released this sample design of the national identification card after President Duterte signed the Philippine Identification System Act last year. JAM STA. ROSA

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Statistics Authority  is targeting to register 45 million Filipinos for the national ID system in 2021, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) chief Karl Kendrick Chua said Thursday during the online hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance on the proposed 2021 budget of NEDA and its attached agencies, including the PSA.

“In 2021, the objective is to register 45 million including the remaining 10 million low-income households that we would like to prioritise so they can open bank accounts and in 2022 would be to register the remaining 42 million five years old and above,” Chua said, referring to the national ID system.

Chua added that PSA is also on track to pre-register nine million household individuals and to register 5 million Filipinos from low-income households by the end of 2020.

“The main difference is because of COVID, we cannot do mass registration and the capture of biometrics will spread the virus so we will have to come up with another way to collect the information through house-to-house visit and that is the pre-registration of the 9 million,” Chua said.

“After they have been pre-registered, they would be scheduled like an appointment system to visit the registration centre so we would minimize the crowd,” the NEDA secretary added.

National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa explained that the pre-registration will start in 32 provinces which were identified to have low cases of COVID-19 to protect the registrant as well as the registration officers.

Mapa said that during the pre-registration stage, house-to-house visits will be conducted to collect the demographic information needed for the national ID.

An appointment system will then be set where the registrant will be asked visit the mobile registration center at a given date and hour.

“This is to minimize crowding, queueing, and at the same time, lessen the time spent in the registration center kasi ang kukunin na lang natin pag pumunta sila sa registration center ay yung tatlong sets of biometrics—fingerprint, iris scan, and the photograph,” Mapa said.

Mapa said there are 655 registration centres located in  32 provinces.

Under the proposed P11.17 billion budget of NEDA, PSA will get P8.49 billion.

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