The proposed measure establishing a national identification system was approved on second reading at the House of Representatives Wednesday night.
The House approved House Bill 6221, which substituted HB 12, 107, 171, 317, 368, 512, 523, 597, 696, 1267, 1687, 1711, 2001, 2167, 2338, 3425, 3448 and 4167, or the proposed “Philippine Identification System or FilSys.”
Laguna Rep. Sol Aragones, chairman of the House committee on population and family relations, and Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves defended the bill in plenary session.
Aragones and Teves allayed the concerns of the leftist lawmakers on its supposed invasion of privacy and redundancy saying it will help address terrorism because it would help prevent the use of false identities, fraudulent transactions, and misrepresentations.
Aragones pointed out that FilSys will also simplify processes in public services, reduce redundancy and delay in government services and transactions, eliminate multiple government identification system, bring down administrative costs and expenses, promote greater convenience to the public and facilitate private business, among others.
She also cited the successful implementation of national ID systems in other countries. It has been pointed out that the Philippines is one of the nine countries in the world that does not have a national ID system.
Proponents of the bill, however, agreed to amend the proposed measure by removing Sections 4 and 7, subsections 34 and 35 with respect to the entries on sensitive information.
Under the proposed measure, all Filipinos, 18 years old and above, both in the Philippines and abroad, are required to register under the FilSys. They will be issued a non-transferrable FilID card with the corresponding Common Reference Number (CRN) which will be permanent.
The FilID shall serve as the official government-issued identification document of a cardholder in dealing with national government agencies, local government units (LGUs), government owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs) as well as private entities and organizations. No other ID will be required.
The issuance of the FilID will be free of charge.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) will manage the implementation of the system including its database in cooperation with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and National Privacy Commission (NPC).
The law penalizes a person who uses fraudulent information in the FilSys as well as disclose any information on the system without any authority.
The bill will be submitted to the plenary on third and final reading in the coming days.
