According to the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), a nongovernmental organization affiliated with Congress, which includes lawmakers in pushing its advocacy of developing public policies on population and human development, 1.3 million children aged zero to 14 have no official birth records, and an estimated total of 3.7 million Filipinos have no birth certificates.
PLCDP executive director Rom Dongeto noted that the country, being highly vulnerable to the increased frequency and severity of disasters and impacts of climate change, needs an efficient and effective civil registry and vital statistics system (CRVS) to match emergency response. He cited the lack of information as well as misinformation and suspicions on mortality data during Super typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013, the Marawi siege in 2017, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Early this year, the House committee on population and family relations approved the Omnibus CRVS bill which seeks to establish a comprehensive, responsive, and modern CRVS system. Philippine Statistics Authority director for legal services Eliezer Ambatali said an existing organic law, the Civil Registry Law of 1930, needs to be amended because of the many gaps in the country’s civil register.
Although new laws have been enacted since, such as the Local Government Code, which establishes civil registration offices, and the Philippine Statistical Act, which reorganized the Philippine Statistical System and named the National Statistician the Civil Registrar General, Ambatali said there is no law that requires the institutionalization of CRVS and align the system with international standards.
An Omnibus CRVS bill would also address issues like the case of BamBan, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, whose Filipino identity has been questioned amid her alleged involvement in illegal Pogo activities, while at the same time prevent identity theft.
The country’s civil registry system has been in need of correcting, updating, and improvements for years, and thanks to the interest in the Guo case, those cracks have been exposed once more.
The country should get around to fixing and upgrading the civil registry systems in order to address honest mistakes as well as prevent malicious misuse, as soon as possible, especially now that that technology can fix those cracks that can and have been exploited for far too long.*
