The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is “confident” that it will reach the target date of the printing of the National ID cards of Filipinos by the end of the year, according to Press Secretary Rose Beatrix “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles.
Angeles said that as of August 23, the PSA has transferred to the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhilPost) some 17.6 million physical National ID cards for delivery to the residences of ID applicants.
The PSA is an attached agency of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) which is headed by Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.
“PSA is making considerable progress to hit the end-year target of 30.1 million physical Phil ID cards, which is 58 percent of the overall target,” Balisacan said.
Balisacan has reported to the Palace that in the last 11 days, the daily average of physical cards produced at the printing facilities of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is 103,000 per day, which is above PSA’s daily target.
“Note that the target number of IDs issued by the end year is 50 million, of which 30.1 million are physical IDs, and the balance of 19.9 million is digital/printable IDs,” Balisacan said in his report.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has earlier instructed the PSA to deliver the 30 million National IDs by the end of 2022, and reach the target benchmark of 92 million by the middle of 2023 as he cited its vital role in digital transformation during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 25.
Marcos, during his first SONA said that the national ID will enable “seamless” transactions between citizens and national and local governments.
“The National ID will play an important part in this digital transformation. For citizens to be able to seamlessly transact with the government, their identity must be verifiable. The target is to accomplish the issuance of about 92-million IDs by the middle of 2023,” the President said.
To make good use of the system, President Marcos ordered the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to “digitize and harmonize” government databases and have their data readily shared across departments and agencies.
“(The DICT) has the daunting task of transforming our government into an agile bureaucracy that is responsive to the needs of the public, provides good and solid data to ensure informed decision making, and allows secure and seamless access to public services,” he said.