Over 17.6 million Philippine Identification (PhilID) cards have been printed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and are set to be delivered to registrants nationwide, Malacañang announced Wednesday.
This is over half of the target 30.1 million National IDs, which the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is targeting to print before the end of the year as instructed by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr.
In a statement issued last Wednesday, Press secretary Beatrix “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles said the printed IDs were already transferred to the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhilPost) to be delivered to the residence of ID applicants. Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, who oversees PSA as an attached agency of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), said he is confident BSP will be able to achieve their printing goal for the National ID this year.
Currently, he said BSP is able to print 103,000 IDs per day, which is over PSA’s daily target.
Aside from the 30.1 million physical IDs, Balisacan said PSA will also be issuing 19.9 million digitable/printable IDs before the end of the year.
Marcos earlier said he wants PSA to issue 92 million IDs by the middle of 2023 to allow Filipinos to “seamlessly transact with the government.”
He already instructed the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to digitize and harmonize the database of the government so all of its agencies and departments could make use of the National ID system.
Among the expected uses of the National ID is it will ease the government distribution of financial aid.