FORMER senator Panfilo Lacson said Friday that the failure in the implementation of the Philippine Identification System Act (RA 11055) is unacceptable.
Lacson’s statement came after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) terminated its contract with AllCard Inc., the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) supplier, due to failure to meet its obligations, resulting in production delays and consequently in the delivery of national ID cards.
“The BSP’s termination of the supplier’s contract should not simply end — it should follow proper legal procedures, and sanctions with commensurate damages must be imposed. Failure to fully implement RA 11055 six years after its passage is unacceptable,” said Lacson, who authored and sponsored Senate Bill 1738 that later became law.
On Aug. 15, 2024, the policymaking Monetary Board (MB) terminated the BSP’s contract with AllCard after the company failed to deliver the goods specified, which amounted to more than 10 percent of the contract price.
Also, the MB authorized BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. to issue a blacklisting order that would disqualify AllCard from participating in future government projects.
According to the central bank, only 57.9 million pre-personalized national ID cards were produced between 2022 and 2023, falling below the target of 116 million cards for Filipinos by 58.1 million. This resulted in a production loss of P1.06 billion, nearly 50 percent of the P2.1 billion contract awarded to AllCard.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte signed RA 11055 into law on Aug. 6, 2018. Section 9 of the law requires every Philippine citizen and resident alien to register with the Philippine ID system personally.
PhilSys national identity card program was launched on Aug. 24, 2018, even though the Policy and Coordination Council approved the implementing rules and regulations on October 5 of the same year.
PhilSys is meant to provide Filipino citizens and foreign residents in the Philippines with a single and unified proof of identity to ease public and private transactions and deter criminality.
The document from the national identification system will be called the PhilSys ID, bearing a permanent identification number called the PhilSys number.
The ID will contain the bearer’s full name, facial image, birth date, address, and fingerprints. However, possession of the ID card itself will not be compulsory. The Philippine Statistics Authority will be the national identification system registry.
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