NEDA chief: PSA targets to register 5M Filipinos in nat’l ID system before 2020 ends

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) targets to register at least five million Filipinos in the national ID system in the last quarter of the year, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) chief Karl Kendrick Chua said Thursday.

During the Senate Committee on Finance hearing of NEDA's proposed P11.17-billion budget, Chua said the PSA would pre-register nine million Filipinos first, with the end goal of successfully registering five million from low-income households in the system by the end of 2020.

National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said the pre-registration would take place in 32 provinces that were identified as low-risk to COVID-19.

"We want to protect the registrant and the registration officers. We will do house-to-house to conduct first the pre-registration, to collect the demographic information and then we will set an appointment system so that the registrant will be going to our mobile registration centers on a specific day and specific hour," Mapa said.

"This is to minimize crowding, queueing, and lessen the time spent in the registration center," he added.

A total of 655 registration centers located in local government premises will accommodate those who have pre-registered so that they may complete their fingerprints and iris scans, and be photographed.

Chua earlier said the pre-registration may happen in mid-October.

2021, 2022 projections

In 2021, at least 45 million Filipinos should be registered in the national ID system, including 10 million low income household heads in the first semester of the said year, according to Chua.

Ninety million Filipinos, those who are five years old and above, should be registered in the national ID system before the Duterte administration ends in 2022, he added.

Under the proposed P11.17-billion 2021 budget, P8.5 billion will go to the Philippine Statistics Authority to fund various statistical programs including the national ID registration.

President Rodrigo Duterte said P4.1 billion was specifically earmarked to expedite the implementation of the national ID system.

Duterte previously said it would have been easier to distribute emergency cash subsidies to Filipinos amid the COVID-19 pandemic if the national ID had been in place. — RSJ, GMA News