Delivery of national ID cards to be completed in September 2024—PSA

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Filipinos who have signed up with the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) will receive their national identification cards by September 2024.

During the Senate Budget deliberations on Monday, Sept. 26, national statistician Dennis Mapa, who also serves as civil registrar general and PSA head, assured Pinoys that they would be able to "clear everything" by next year based on the schedule presented to them.

According to Mapa, printing will continue to operate on a first-in, first-out basis. 

Mapa explained that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) contractor AllCard Inc. is having a hard time keeping up with the number of average registrants on a daily basis as it reached up to 250,000 in 2021, when it could only accommodate up to 80,000 cards per day.

"'Yung adjustment is really to increase the capacity of the printer, so parang you have more volume in the registration, but the printer capacity was pegged at about 80,000. So that is the catch-up plan that we are actually talking with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas," he said. 

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who has also been waiting for his physical card to arrive for two years now, said that PSA could consider using the digital version of the national IDs to lessen the delay in the printing process. 

“[In other countries], their [national] IDs are already in their mobile phones,” he said. 

Out of the 81 million Filipinos who have registered for the National ID system, 39.7 million have received their plastic ID cards while 41.2 million have only been issued their own printable copy, which is also known as the ePhilID. 

The PSA is currently seeking a P1.6 billion budget for the year. It's hoping to register 101 million Filipinos overall by next year.