MANILA -- With roughly 50 percent of national IDs or Philippine Identification (PhilID) cards printed, Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa on Monday proposed the halt in the production of physical IDs.

During the Senate budget hearing of the National Economic and Development Authority, Finance Committee Vice Chairman Dela Rosa suggested that the Philippine Statistics Authority should stop printing the remaining unprinted national IDs and succeeding registrations to the system to save money.

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The senator said that a digital ID may be more convenient to acquire than waiting for these IDs to be printed.

“Siguro pwede natin i-stop ‘yon then we’ll go digital. Maka-save pa ng pera ang gobyerno. Lahat naman ng Pilipino, may cellphone. Maka-save pa tayo ng pera kung hindi natin i-print ang remaining,” Dela Rosa said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that it has delivered 39.7 million national IDs out of 80.7 million registered individuals. The Department of Information and Communications Technology has augmented the PSA’s PhilID by releasing 41 million ePhilIDs.

• PSA: 46 million national IDs already printed

Committee on Finance Vice Chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian also noted logistical issues faced by the production of physical IDs that can be considered in the full shift to digital IDs.

“It saves a lot of time. It saves logistics issues. Kasi the physical cards, you have to deliver. ‘Pag wala doon, ibabalik pa. Minsan nakukuha ng iba tapos nawala,” Gatchalian said.

(With the physical cards, you have to deliver. If the recipient is not there, you have to return to sender. Some of them are received by others, and some are lost.)

'DI LAHAT MAY SMARTPHONE, INTERNET'

While the PSA sees the eventual shift to digital IDs in the long run, National Statistician Undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa argued that Filipinos still prefer to have a tangible ID card.

“If you look at statistics, right now, not all Filipinos 15 (years old) and above have a smartphone. Meron tayong smartphone, one per household. But not individual," he said.

"And also, we have areas that don’t have much connectivity. Island barangays, these are areas actually that we are doing some priority deliveries kasi kailangan nila ng physical card,” Mapa explained.

In the proposed 2024 National Expenditure Program of NEDA, P8.94 billion or 73 percent of NEDA’s budget is allocated to PSA as its attached agency.

About P1.61 billion is devoted to the Philippine Identification System as the PSA aims to register into the system a total of 101 million Filipinos by next year.

PSA is targeting to release 92 million PhilIDs by September 2024.

Mapa added that the PhilSys Council is looking for ways to increase the printing capacity of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ service provider to expedite the printing of IDs.

BSP overlooks the printing of PhilID cards 24/7. It aims to increase the capacity to 150,000 IDs printed per day from the current average of 80,000 IDs per day.

“Ang proposal ng service provider ng BSP, may technology change in the process para maabot nila itong 150,000,” Mapa said.