ZAMBOANGA CITY – The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has launched a program to assist unregistered residents to secure birth certificates with the agency.
The program, PhilSys Birth Registration Assistance Project, involves PSA personnel going to the barangays to assist unregistered residents.
Roxan Kastine Lumapas, PSA registration officer, said Friday there are 46,000 residents here who do not have birth certificates since they did not register with the local civil registrar’s office.
Lumapas noted that most of the reasons they failed to register was due to the far distance of the unregistered individuals’ residence to the local civil registrar office.
“The objective of the program is to ensure all births of Filipinos are registered in the local civil registry and that they will be enrolled with the PhilSys National Identification System,” Lumapas said.
She said birth certificate is an important document as it gives legal identity to a person, and it is also required in certain government transactions—especially in applying for national identification card. (PNA)
