Palace: Duterte ready to sign national ID bill into law

President Rodrigo Duterte is ready to sign into law the proposed national identification system once it reaches his desk, Malacañang said Friday.

The Senate and House of Representatives have already come up with a single version of the bill, which will be ratified by both chambers before sending it to Duterte for his signature.

“This landmark bill is part of the legislative priority agenda of the Duterte administration to improve the delivery of government services; thus, once ratified, the President will sign this into law,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

Details of the harmonized version have yet to be released to the public although Senator Panfilo Lacson said the bicameral conference committee-backed version does not differ much from the one approved by the Senate.

The Senate approved-bill seeks to harmonize, integrate, and interconnect the countless and redundant government IDs by establishing a single national identification system to be known as the Philippine Identification System or PhilSys.

The proposed ID will contain full name, facial image, date of birth, address and fingerprints of the individual.

Under the proposed measure, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is mandated to act as the PhilSys Registry, a repository and custodian of all data including the PSN, registered records, and information of all persons registered in the PhilSys.

Lawmakers belonging to the Makabayan bloc have raised concerns against the measure, saying the data may be used against opponents of the government and to deprive others who do not have it of basic social services. They urged the public to reject the bill. —KG, GMA News