MANILA — President Marcos has ordered the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to fast-track the printing of the digital version of the national identification cards as the agency struggles to meet its target in the distribution of physical cards.
Marcos made the directive during a meeting with National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan and PSA officials, led by Undersecretary Dennis Mapa, at Malacañang yesterday, where they tackled issues surrounding the rollout of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) ID.
“Let us print out as much as we can, and then let’s issue the physical ID as soon as we can,” the President said, referring to the electronic Philippine ID or ePhilID, the digital equivalent of the national ID.
Last month, the PSA said it has printed more than 3.6 million ePhilIDs.
The PSA, the NEDA and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) are the government agencies in charge of the PhilSys ID project.
Mapa told Marcos that the PSA continues to work with the BSP in further expediting and boosting the volume of Phil ID production and printing.
According to a statement released by the Office of the Press Secretary yesterday, the printing issues were attributed to the “late start of the flow of data and the volume of the data, which is less than what is supposed to be.”
However, these problems have been rectified, Mapa said.
Earlier, the legislators grilled the PSA over its supposed negligence in distributing national IDs, which would allow faster and seamless transactions in accessing financial and social protection services.
Earlier, the PSA administrator attributed the delay in the printing of national ID cards to the influx of PhilSys registrants.
japanese trap 2023