Solon calls on PSA to finalize design of national ID card

FILE: Nograles said the PSA should also establish a process by which the agency can receive and address complaints regarding faulty cards, as well as replace lost or damaged cards (PNA photo)

MANILA — A lawmaker on Friday urged the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to finalize the design of the national identification (ID) card and prepare for its production.

House of Representatives appropriations committee chairman Karlo Nograles said the PSA should already be ready to go “full blast” in the production of the national ID card once President Rodrigo R. Duterte signs the national ID system bill into law.

“By this time, the final design of the ID should have been completed and the PSA should already have all the necessary facilities to go full blast in producing these IDs,” Nograles said.

“It would be reasonable to assume by now that the PSA already has its distribution mechanism in place,” he added.

The bill, known as the proposed Act establishing the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys), has already been ratified by both chambers of Congress last month and is now up for the President’s signature.

Nograles said the PSA should also establish a process by which the agency can receive and address complaints regarding faulty cards, as well as replace lost or damaged cards.

The bill seeks to integrate and interconnect some 30 redundant government IDs by coming up with one national ID system.

The PhilSys card is a machine-readable government card that will store multiple data about the cardholder. This data can range from tax information to health or social security card details, to name a few.

Nograles noted that there is a PHP2-billion allocation for the implementation of PhilSys in the 2018 national budget.

He said the PSA should ensure a hitch-free implementation of the national ID system.

The PSA is mandated to act as the PhilSys Registry, a repository and custodian of all data, including the PhilSys Number or PSN, registered records, and information of all persons registered in the PhilSys.