50 million Filipinos registered for national ID—PSA

The Philippine Statistics Authority has achieved its target number of 50 million registrations for the year 2021.

In a statement released on Tuesday, December 14, PSA reported that 50,014,382 Filipinos have successfully completed their Step 2 Registration for the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) as of December 11, 2021.

Step 2 Registration includes the validation of supporting documents and collection of biometric information of an individual such as fingerprints, iris scans, and front-facing photographs.                                              

“The PSA salutes all those who contributed to this milestone for the PhilSys Step 2 Registration,” said PSA Undersecretary Dennis S. Mapa, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General. 

Amid the pandemic, the PSA said that they managed to start the Step 2 registration in January 2021 in 32 priority provinces which are considered low-risk areas for COVID-19.

“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,” he added.

The three-step PhilSys registration process rolled out in October 2020, which prioritized registering low-income households in the 32 priority provinces. 

The PhilSys registration team conducted a house-to-house collection of the registrants’ demographic information as part of the PhilSys Step 1 Registration, despite the heightened quarantine protocols. 

Meanwhile, the nationwide collection of registrants’ demographic information was also made possible with the launch of the PhilSys registration in April 2021.

For Step 3 Registration, the PSA said they are continuously working to speed up the issuance of the PhilSys Number (PSN) as well as the delivery of PhilID cards to registrants together with its partner agencies: the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the card production, and the Philippine Postal Corporation (PHLPost) for door-to-door delivery.

As of December 10, the PSA said 4.4 million Filipinos have already received their PhilID cards. The PSA also informed that the cards will soon be available digitally through the soon-to-be-launched PhilSys mobile application.

Registrants can use this alternative while for their physical PhilID.