Around 37.2 million Filipinos have taken the online registration for the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) as of July, with 16.2 million individuals registered for the biometrics capture — the second step in the registration process.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that 343,742 registrants have received their PhilID cards.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said it is confident that the government is on track to reaching its 50-70 million target registrations by the end of the year.
NEDA chief Karl Kendrick Chua said the government would speed up the rollout of PhilSys in order to provide all Filipinos a unique and digitized ID.
“We aim to register 50 to 70 million Filipinos with the PhilSys and achieve 100-percent financial inclusion at the family level by the end of the year. This will help the government efficiently identify beneficiaries for social protection programs and spark the widespread use of electronic payments to accelerate the digital economy,” Chua said.
The PSA adopted a three-step registration process to meet health protocol amid the current Covid-19 pandemic. The first step is the demographic data collection which can be done through house-to-house or online registration followed by the biometrics capture at designated registration centers and the issuance of the PhilSys Number (PSN) and PhilID card.
PhilSys also partnered with the Landbank of the Philippines (LBP) to allow registrants to open bank accounts in registration centers. As of July 2, 2021, 4.4 million registrants have applied for an account with the LBP.
In a recent memorandum, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the PhiIID should be accepted as official and sufficient proof of identity without the need to present any other identification documents.
