More than one million Filipinos have successfully registered online for the first step of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) registration, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in a statement yesterday.
As of May 17, the PSA has recorded a total of 1,052,861 registrants who have completed the online step one registration.
The online registration for step one aims to register more Filipinos to the PhilSys while minimizing health and safety risks, the PSA said.
“This is yet another milestone in implementing this national priority program that will usher our country to a digital society. We are grateful for the patience and trust of Filipinos who registered, even though we encountered technical difficulties when we started the pilot,” Dennis Mapa, PSA undersecretary, said.
“With the support of our citizens, we remain optimistic that we can register 50 to 70 million Filipinos to the PhilSys this year,” he added.
The PSA said it also continues to make significant improvements on the website by implementing user-testing strategies as a safety measure to ensure that the site can accommodate the surge of users and heavy traffic at any given point of the day.
The second step of the registration will soon be rolled out in all provinces, according to the PSA.
This step involves validating the demographic information and capturing registrants’ biometric data such as their iris scans, fingerprint scans and front-facing photograph at designated local registration centers.
The final step to PhilSys is the issuance of the PhilSys Number and the Philippine Identification (PhilID) card in partnership with the Philippine Postal Corp. (PHLPost).
As of May 15, a total of 103,935 PhilID cards were already delivered by PHLPost to successful registrants, the PSA said.
“We are thankful for our partner, PHLPost, for the swift distribution of the PhilID cards to our registrants. We are looking into ramping-up our card production and delivery services in the coming weeks so that more Filipinos will be able to enjoy the benefits of registering to the PhilSys,” Mapa said.
“The PSA is working to partner with various agencies and institutions so the public could have easier access to government and private transactions,” he added. – Angela Celis
