REGISTERED. Residents in Caibiran, Biliran receive their copies of certificates of live birth in this Jan. 18, 2024 photo. The province of Biliran will be the pilot area for the UN Development Programme’s Open Civil and Vital Registration System (OpenCVRS), meant to digitalize transactions. (Photo courtesy of PSA)
TACLOBAN CITY – The province of Biliran was chosen as a pilot area for the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Open Civil and Vital Registration System (OpenCVRS) meant to digitalize transactions.
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Eastern Visayas Regional Director Wilma Perante said the open CVRS will fast-track the process of civil registration to the local civil registrar (LCR) and PSA offices.
“Under OpenCVRS, an individual doesn’t have to go to LCR to process a birth and death registration. It can be done in hospitals since their system is already linked to the LCR. The LCR’s system is also linked to the PSA. Currently, hospital personnel must bring documents to LCR,” Perante said in an interview Thursday.
Biliran was chosen as a pilot area since it is one of the smallest provinces in the country with only eight towns, according to the PSA official.
OpenCRVS is specifically designed to respond to the challenges of low-resource settings by increasing accessibility to civil registration services and making real-time data available to decision-makers to ensure that no one is left behind.
“This is part of the continued innovation of PSA—bringing civil registration services and vital statistics more accessible to the public and providing seamless services,” she added.
Meanwhile, she said that PSA targets to open a Civil Registration Services (CRS) outlet in Biliran within the year to bring their services closer to the people in the provinces.
Currently, only Biiran province has no CRS outlet in Eastern Visayas. The unstable internet signal is a setback in setting up the outlet, according to Perante.
People in the province would have to travel to Tacloban City to obtain copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates, and certificates of no marriage.
The CRS is a project aimed at enhancing public service delivery. It expedites the processing of requests, reduces waiting time at application and payment counters, and improves facilities, ultimately improving convenience for the public.
The PSA emphasizes recording the details of all major life events, such as births and deaths, as the country celebrates the 34th Civil Registration Month. The celebration is under Proclamation No. 682 signed by then-President Corazon C. Aquino on January 28, 1991.
This annual celebration aims to remind Filipinos of their duty to register acts and events concerning the status of persons and to enhance nationwide awareness and appreciation of the legal, administrative, and statistical values of civil registry documents. (PNA)
