PSA: Over 50 million Filipinos now registered for national ID

A graphic representation of the national ID. Art by Ed Lustan

MANILA, Philippines—With over 50 million Filipinos giving biometric information to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the government has now reached its national ID registration goal for 2021.

In a statement on Tuesday (Dec. 14), the PSA said that as of Dec. 11, 50.01 million Filipinos finished the second registration step for the Philippine identification system (PhilSys), which entailed capture of fingerprints, iris scans and front-facing photos.

The PSA noted that despite the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, step two of PhilSys registration started in January of this year in 32 provinces which had relatively low COVID-19 infections. “Despite the pandemic, the PSA was able to expand its operations to more cities and municipalities nationwide,” it said.

“The PSA salutes all those who contributed to this milestone for the PhilSys step two registration,” said National Statistician Dennis Mapa. “Notwithstanding the pandemic and the restrictions that came with it, the PSA — together with its field offices, partner agencies, and key stakeholders — worked relentlessly to ensure that more Filipinos can begin registering for their PhilIDs,” Mapa said.

The first of three registration steps involved collection of demographic information, which can be done through PhilSys’s online registration site. Following biometric collection, the third and final step were the door-to-door delivery of the Philippine identification (PhilID) cards.

The PSA said that as of Dec. 10, 4.41 million PhilID cards had already been delivered by the state-run Philippine Postal Corp. (PHLPost).

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was producing the PhilID cards.

“These cards will soon have a digital version through the soon-to-be-launched PhilSys mobile app. Registrants can already use this alternative while waiting for their actual PhilIDs,” the PSA said.

TSB