The Philippine Statistics Authority said it will be conducting a massive updating of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) to correct erroneous data encoded during the registration process.
“There were a lot (of errors) with the massive registration. So maybe this year, in May or the second semester, we will conduct an updating operation,” PSA registration officer Baby Jean Alid recently said.
The PSA will conduct the update after all have been fully registered to the PhilSys. Among the issues that the PSA will correct is the erasure of pictures on the IDs.
“We freely admit that this is an issue. Apologies on that,” Alid said. “We can’t answer why this happens because the printing of the ID is coursed through the Banko Sentral ng Pilpinas.”
The PSA advised those whose ID photos were erased to go to their office so they can elevate the issue to the central office.
Another issue hounding the PhilSys registration is the use of fictitious names.
As of January 27, 2023, there are 76.2 million Filipinos registered to PhilSys, with 29.9 million IDs already delivered via the Philippine Postal Office and 18.4 million only given a digital copy of the ID in the form of a printout.
Filipinos who applied for their PhilSys IDs with the expectation it will be an improvement over any previous iterations, especially considering the cost to taxpayers, will surely be disappointed to learn of more failures. Aside from the inability to deliver the simple plastic ID card as soon as possible, we now have to deal with erroneous entries, missing photos, and fictitious names.
Unless the PSA gets its act together soon, it would seem like this was all a waste of time and money, which is something our government seems to have tendency towards, usually at the expense of the poor and inconvenienced Filipino taxpayer.*
