GOVERNMENT executives who caused unwarranted delays in the implementation of the Philippine Identification System Act (Republic Act 11055) will be held liable when the Senate kicks off its probe into the government’s continued lack of a national identification system.
On Wednesday, Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Panfilo Lacson filed Senate Resolution No. 352 urging the appropriate Senate committee to look into the status of the implementation of the PhilSys law, which President Duterte signed into law on Aug. 6, 2018.
Sotto said the Senate will invite representatives of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), other executive branch offices, and service providers from the private sector which have proposed quick and reliable processes to speed up the law’s implementation.
Sotto said the investigation, which he said will start once the Senate resumes regular sessions in May, will zero in on which agency caused the delay in the implementation of the national ID system.
He has said well-meaning sources have provided him reliable information that the delay in the implementation of the national ID system was due to “red tape.” He did not elaborate
The Senate President reiterated data from a national ID system could have solved problems in the distribution of government special amelioration funds given to low-income families and members of vulnerable sectors affected by the Luzon lockdown imposed to control the spread of the infectious novel coronavirus.
Sotto said that in 2018, the government allocated a budget of P2 billion to the PSA for the initial implementation of the program “although the entire budget for the program amounts to P25 billion.”
“Almost two years from its enactment into law and the approval of its IRR (implementing rules and regulations on Oct. 5, 2018), there seems to be no significant headway on its implementation… It was only on 02 September 2019 — a year after the supposed implementation — that the first testing for the national identification program was conducted by the PSA,” SRN 352 said.
The resolution noted that the initial phase of the program covered only a small number of individuals from Metro Manila.
Several elected officials have been calling for the full-blown and immediate implementation of the national ID system to fast track the efficient distribution of the government’s cash assistance to the poorest of the poor. Even President Duterte has lamented the lack of a national data base, which would have been available if the system was already in place.
