The bicameral conference committee has approved a proposed law establishing a single, unified and streamlined national identification system.
Lawmakers praised the swift approval of the proposed national identification card system by the committee, which approved it on Tuesday night.
Rep. Karlo Nograles, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, said a systematic national ID system would boost the country’s campaign against terrorism, drug trafficking and other crimes.
“On the first anniversary of the Marawi siege, it is very comforting to know that the government is on its way to enforcing a law that will augment our security mechanisms,” Nograles said.
“The national ID system will help prevent another Marawi from happening.”
In September 2017, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading its own version of the national ID system Act, specifically House Bill 6221, which was co-authored by Nograles. The bill will be known as the proposed Act Establishing the Filipino Identification System or FilSys.
On Tuesday night, the Bicameral panel reconciled the House and Senate versions of the proposed statute. The next steps will be the ratification of the measure and then its signing by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Nograles said his committee had earlier proposed to allocate a P2-billion funding for FilSys. The FilSys card will be a machine-readable government card that will store multiple data about the card holder.
Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the chairman of the House committee on dangerous drugs, said “the passage of the bill would help law enforcement agencies to arrest lawbreakers and those behind illegal activities, including banned substances.”
Rep. Raneo Abu urged the Philippine Statistics Authority to immediately implement the national identification card system once President Rodrigo Duterte signs the bill into law.
“This is very important in our fight against terrorism and other lawless elements. We expect the PSA to immediately implement this after the measure becomes law,” Abu said.
“This will help interconnect the countless and redundant government IDs.”