National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) cites three main use cases for PhilSys once implemented in the Philippines. The first is ensuring the efficient and effective distribution of emergency subsidies, the second is strengthening financial inclusion, and the third is facilitating vaccine distribution for the general population. As of April 2021, the country is still in the middle of providing vaccines to the population. The report comes after Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua joined the Human Capital Ministerial Conclave organized by the World Bank on April 5, 2021.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed several institutional weaknesses, including the difficulty in identifying beneficiaries for social programs and the lack of bank accounts for the efficient distribution of subsidies. Given this, the President gave the directive to accelerate the implementation of the PhilSys. We aim to register 50 to 70 million individuals by the end of the year,” Chua said.
The NEDA chief clarified that, amidst the pandemic, they were able to accomplish its three-step registration process.
From zero registrations last year, over 27 million individuals have been registered for step 1 or the demographic data collection; of which over 2.2 million individuals have completed their step 2 registration or biometrics capture, and more than 390,000 opened bank accounts on-site as of April 2021. Step 3, or the issuance of PhilSys Numbers (PSNs) and PhilIDs, will begin this month.
Chua added that the government is also working on the PhilSys registry to support the efficient distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine for the general population by linking existing registries to PSNs for authentication. PhilSys may also help seamlessly implement digital vaccine credentials in the future.
“We have seen how having a national ID system benefits other countries. We are truly excited to register the majority of our population, and eventually implement the use cases to benefit our people,” Chua emphasized.
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