Gov’t sets P27.8B budget for national ID system

The multi-year rollout of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) and the national ID will cost the government almost P30 billion, the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA) said Friday.

“We submitted the overall budget at the NEDA-ICC (National Economic and Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee) last May 2020, and the budget is about P27.8 billion, that is the entire budget for the PhilSys,” National Statistician and NEDA Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said at a virtual press conference.

Mapa said the P27.8-billion budget will cover hiring of enumerators who will collect census data door-to-door, procurement of gadgets for collection of data, automated biometric identification system, systems integrator, and cybersecurity component.

The PSA chief said for 2018, the government has released P2 billion for the PhilSys and for 2019 another P2.1 billion was allocated.

For this year, the government earmarked P3 billion.

“So nasa P7.1 billion na ang naibigay lahat ngayon,” Mapa said.

“Dahil malaki ang target na mai-rehistro sa 2021 binigyan kami ng P4.1 billion budget,” he added.

Mapa said the PSA has already procured registration kits, automated biometric data collection system and systems integrator components for the PhilSys.

For his part, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Dennis Villorente said part of the overall cost of the systems integrator procured by the government are cybersecurity components “para ma-secure ang IT infrastructure ng PhilSys.”

“[Around] P2.2 billion ang iginastos ng PSA para sa systems integrator,” Villorente said.

The remaining budget programmed for the PhilSys will be exhausted on the registrations and printing of ID cards.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is the agency tasked to print the ID cards for the PhilSys.

“Ang pinakamalaking gastos is ‘yung registration process at malaking component din ‘yung pag-produce ng ID mismo,” Mapa said.

The national statistician said that starting January 2021, the registration for the national ID system will be nationwide.

This, after the PSA completed the first five to nine million low-income household heads to be registered in the system from October to December this year.

The registration Step 1, to capture the 10 demographic information of the registrants, will start on October 12, 2020.

The registration Step 2, to capture the biometric information such as iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph, will start on November 25 at the PhilSys registration centers.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) identified the priority provinces for the roll out of the national ID or Philippine Identification System (PhilSys).

“After the registration of low-income household heads, the PSA will make the registration available to the public in 2021 with help of LGUs (local government units), partner agencies and other stakeholders,” Mapa said.