CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA) – The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) held an Information Education Communication (IEC) campaign on the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) in Cagayan de Oro City to reach out to local government units and institutions in the locality to inform them about the PhilSys registry.

PSA assistant national statistician Emily R. Pagador said the PhilSys is not just the issuance of the ID but it has an authentication platform.

She said there is a need to explain how PhilID or PhilSys works and how they [government agencies and institutions] can integrate and bring it down to the local government.

“Right now everyone is clamoring for their physical ID, and even a printed ePhil ID, time will come you will not need those physical IDs anymore, all you will need is your PhilSys number, biometric information, then your identity and age can already be verified. No need to present other IDs anymore,” she said.

PhilSys is a digital ID where the means of verification are also digital.

“This is our National ID. It’s better to have a National ID because you don’t need to present other identification documents to be verified. You just need the PhilSys ID or e-Phil ID for that,” she said.

At the national level, PSA was able to register 74.6 million citizens already as of October 31, 2022 and generated PhilSys Number (PSN), a unique number of 47.7 million which are potential IDs as of November 4.

“We have already dispatched 23.7 million ID cards to PhilPost for delivery and PhilPost was able to deliver 18.4 million cards already to our citizens,” Pagador said.

In region 10, PSA was able to register 3.6 million citizens and already printed 94, 071 ePhil IDs and delivered 231, 721 Phil ID cards per data of PhilPost.

Meanwhile, Mary Caren O. Barretto from RCBC bank shared, “In RCBC we really accept kai mandated man by the BSP, dili gyud pwede mubalibad og PhilSYs ID, kai ang feature sa ID, walai signature, sa bangko it is really important to have the signature, pag photocopy namo sa ID, we just have to let the client sign nga kato nlng daun basis namo sa signature sailang gina sign nga documents.”

(In RCBC, we really accept because it is mandated by the BSP, we cannot refuse PhilSYs ID, even though the feature does not include a signature, in the bank, it is really important to have the signature when we photocopy the ID, we just have to let the client sign which will be our basis for the signature in the documents they sign.)

Under section 19, RA 11055, any person or entity who will refuse to accept or recognize the PhilID or PhilSys number as the only official identification of the holder without just and sufficient cause, shall be fined an amount equivalent to P500,000. (JMOR/PIA10)