MANILA—The Philippine government can save 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) over a five-year period with the implementation of a national identification (ID) system, a top official of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Friday.
At the sidelines of a sponsored seminar at the 51st Annual Asian Development Bank (ADB) Meeting here, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Lisa Bersales said such saving is possible because of less leakage on social protection benefits, particularly conditional cash transfers (CCT) and benefits for senior citizens.
"The expectation is that with the national ID system, there will be savings of about 2 percent of GDP eventually. Meaning less leakage from social protection, benefits like CCT and UCT (unconditional cash transfer) and senior citizens," Bersales said.
She said the Department of Finance and the central bank are staunch advocates of the national ID system for the sake of financial inclusion and for giving social protection benefits to the right people without duplicating the services.
Bersales further noted the citizens would also be the gainers with this national ID scheme as it entails having less ID cards and less transactions with the government for identification papers.
"Studies that we did tell us that with the national ID, saving would be for both citizens as individuals and the government," she said.
The proposed national ID system has already been approved on final reading by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The said measure is now at the stage of bicameral negotiations between both chambers.
A total of PHP2 billion has already been allotted in the 2018 national budget for the funding of the national ID system.
Bersales said an estimated cost of about USD500 million would be incurred with its implementation for a period of five years.
"The Philippine Statistics Authority would be able to provide ID numbers and capture biometrics in five years for 107 million Filipino citizens and non-Filipino residents. We estimate that the cost would be about 500 million dollars for the five years," she said.
Bersales also revealed that the PSA has asked for PHP6.5 billion pesos for the national ID in its budget proposal for 2019.
The national statistician said once the bill is enacted into law, the PSA would conduct a pilot implementation for 1 million individuals by December or January.
"We are going to start issuing (the national ID) through a pilot work of about 1 million individuals by December or January just to simulate the whole process like how long does it take to line up and to get your biometrics captured," she said.
Under the House version of the bill, the Filipino Identification System (FilSys) card is the envisioned all-in-one, machine-readable government card that will store multiple data about the cardholder.
The FilSys card may be used in all government transactions including applications for passport, driver’s license, availment of services and benefits offered by insurance institutions, clearances from the courts, prosecutor and the police, and other transactions requiring proof of identity.
The NEC-sponsored event titled "Civil Registration and Identification (ID) for Development in Asia and the Pacific" was held as part of the 51st ADB Annual Meeting 2018. (PNA)
