President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should appoint a new head of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to accelerate the implementation of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) project, Senior Deputy Minority Leader Paul Daza said.
Daza, a representative of Northern Samar’s 1st district, made the call amid the delays in the printing and delivery of the PhilSys cards.
The PhilSys ID project is managed through the PSA by now-retired Assistant Secretary Rosalinda Bautista, deputy national statistician of the PhilSys Registry Office.
National statistician and Civil Registrar General Dennis Mapa heads the PSA, an attached agency of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
Daza said it is “a golden opportunity” for the President “to find the right individual who will rectify what has happened in the last four years”.
The national ID system has been faced with various issues from the delays in the production to the distribution of the physical PhilSys cards.
A Commission on Audit (COa) report for 2021 showed that the total actual deliveries of pre-personalized cards by the contractor, AllCard, was 27,356,750 pieces, or 76 percent of the annual requirement of 36 million as of the end of December 2021.
READ: 20M national IDs issued to Pinoys
Daza, along with Bagong Henerasyon (BH) arty-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera, cited the mounting complaints on the PhilSys cards, one of which is the “erasable” print quality.
“We have been receiving complaints on the ID, with people saying it is ‘Phil-Tiis’,” Daza said.
The lawmaker also highlighted the need to monitor disbursements, noting the P28.4 billion worth of funds allocated to the national ID program, with only P6.8 billion or 24 percent already been so far appropriated since 2018.
Daza already called out the delays and inefficient utilization of public funds for the project during his interpellation at the recent deliberation of the NEDA budget for 2023.
Citing the slow and problematic implementation of the project, he said this could be enough to reconsider the allocation of P2 billion for the PhilSys ID system next year.
“It’s important that appropriations are based on judicious and efficient use of public funds. We encourage NEDA to ensure that disbursements are based on milestones but clearly, there are delays and problems in this project,” Daza stressed.
Republic Act (RA) No. 11055, or Philippine Identification System Act, was signed into law in Augusut 2018 by former president Rodrigo Duterte. According to the PSA, more than 70 million have already been registered, while 21 million have received their physical IDs.
Source: Manila Bulletin (https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/29/phil-tiis-pbbm-urged-to-appoint-new-psa-head-to-fix-philsys-mess/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=phil-tiis-pbbm-urged-to-appoint-new-psa-head-to-fix-philsys-mess)
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