PSA: Those with printed national ID will still receive physical cards, enjoy benefits

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Friday those who secured a printed digital version of their Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) or national ID can still expect their actual physical cards and at the same time enjoy the benefits of having a national ID.

At a virtual press briefing, PSA chief and National Statistician Dennis Mapa said the statistics agency introduced the digital version of the PhilSys ID or ePhilID, which can be printed at the PSA’s registration centers, as a “proactive strategy that will allow more Filipinos to immediately enjoy the benefits of being PhilSys registered.”

“The issuance of printed ePhilID is to complement the delivery of the physical cards from the printing facilities of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) so that the registered person can immediately utilize the benefits of the PhilSys such as faster and seamless transaction in accessing financial and social protection services requiring proof of identity subject to authentication,” Mapa said.

The issuance of the ePhilID is also pursuant to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to issue 50 million IDs by the end of the year, of which 30 million are physical cards and 20 million are digital printed versions.

“We assure all PhilSys registrants will still receive their physical PhilID cards. Printing will continue parallel to the introduction of the printed ePhilID. There is a physical card allocated for each registered person,” Mapa said.

As of October 17, the PSA chief said about 74.28 million have already registered in the PhilSys, in which their demographic and biometric information were already collected.

Of the registrants, more than 45 million already have their unique 12-digit PhilSys number —meaning they are already verified as a unique person.

“Out of this, We have already dispatched/turned over to the Philippine Post Office a total of 22.55 million PhilID cards,” Mapa said.

The PhilPost, meanwhile, has delivered about 17.6 million PhilID cards as of last week Oct 14, according to the PSA chief.

As to the ePhilIDs printed, Mapa said that so far the PSA has pre-generated close to two million ePhilIDs for claiming as of October 20.

“Out of this close to two million, about 385,657 printed are already in the hands of registrants,” he said.

The PSA chief said the printed digital version of the PhilID contains features such as the actual national ID, such as the front face photo, demographic information, PhilSys number, and a unique QR code that can be scanned for authentication.

“The printed ePhilID shall be honored and accepted as the official government-issued identification document of a person for his or her transaction in all national government agencies, local government units, government-owned and controlled corporations, government financial institutions, financial institutions, and private sector,” Mapa said.

“The BSP also issued a memorandum to all its supervised financial institutions for the use and acceptance of the printed ePhilID and other formats of the digital ID,” he added. — DVM, GMA News