National IDs as a Pathway to Government Centralization

When then-President Rodrigo Duterte first signed the Philippine Identification System Act or Republic Act No. 11055, this was met with a lot of hesitation, especially about data privacy and collection. Some were apprehensive about this law mainly because of security reasons, with a hacker having access to millions of accounts with valuable data all in one system.

Despite these concerns, the law was effectively signed and the process has been well underway. Currently, the releasing and processing of IDs are experiencing delays.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had a meeting with NEDA officials last July and brought up the speeding of the process of PhilSys, so that this may be used by early 2023.

However, in the Commission of Audit’s (COA) report for 2021, only 17.53% of the 50 million goals were delivered.

Despite the hiccups of the releasing process, the centralized identification system carries a lot of potential for efficiency and seamless transactions.

From government branches such as SSS, Philhealth, Pag-IBIG, DSWD, etc, instead of having to fill up paperwork each time you apply, imagine them just pulling up the same record and this reflecting all the information you need.

This would save so much time in terms of long queues for government documents you would have to present to apply for a program or to be a government beneficiary.

Though this initiative of the government would still need to be fully rolled out for us to determine its effectiveness and use, the idea behind this is favorable towards the Filipinos.

In times wherein a huge chunk of the population still live below the poverty line and who lives on paychecks day by day, they should be the priority and be kept in mind when this takes full effect by next year.

Sources: NEDA, Inquirer