President Rodrigo Duterte and his Cabinet approved an additional P3.52 billion to register 20 million more Filipinos in the national ID system for 2021, Palace said Wednesday.
The government originally targeted to register 50 million people by end-2021, according to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.
In October, the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA) said the government would need to spend around P30 billion for the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) and the national ID.
“We submitted the overall budget at the NEDA-ICC (National Economic and Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee) last May 2020, and the budget is about P27.8 billion, that is the entire budget for the PhilSys,” National Statistician and NEDA Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said.
Mapa said the budget would cover the procurement of gadgets for collecting data, hiring enumerators who will collect census data door-to-door, systems integrator, automated biometric identification system, and cybersecurity component.
Mapa said the PSA has already acquired registration kits, an automated biometric data collection system,s and systems integrator components for the PhilSys.
Meanwhile, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Dennis Villorente said part of the overall cost of the system integrator brought by the government is cybersecurity components “para ma-secure ang IT infrastructure ng PhilSys.”
The remaining budget dedicated to the PhilSys would be for the registrations and printing of ID cards.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas would be printing the ID cards for the PhilSys.
Also read: Imee Marcos questions reputation of national ID supplier
National ID system update
As of December, PhilSys on national ID registration step one has reached 8.4 million, PSA said.
Step 1 registration for the national ID program is the house–to–house collection of demographic information. It is where appointments for Step 2 is made.
Mapa also said that Step 2 of Philsys registration is set to begin on January 4, 2021, and would be on a gradual and small-scale basis.
For Step 2 Registration, PSA would validate applicants’ supporting documents and capture their biometric information at registration centers.
The PSA said it has duly informed Step 1 registrants of this new development in coordination with partner local government units (LGUs).
Step 1 of the PhilSys included low-income families in the 32 priority provinces for 2020.