THE Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued a legal opinion highlighting the necessity of an executive order to delegate certain functions of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), in so far as to speed up the issuance of national identification cards to Filipino citizens.
In his legal opinion, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla stated that the Marcos administration should issue an executive order that permits the transfer of some responsibilities of the PSA, as outlined in the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) Act of 2018, to the DICT.
This step is crucial in addressing the delays in the distribution of national IDs.
The Office of the Executive Secretary sought the DOJ’s opinion after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed his strong desire to accelerate the issuance of the digital PhilSys ID.
Despite the enactment of the law five years ago, its full implementation is yet to be achieved.
The production and delivery of 116 million national ID cards were scheduled to commence in 2021. However, as of the end of that year, only slightly over 27 million cards had been distributed.
The electronic Philippine IDs (ePhilID) serve as the digital equivalent of the traditional national ID cards.
Printing issues have been attributed to the delayed flow and insufficient volume of data.
“To fully realize the objectives of the PhilSys Act, it is imperative to reorganize the Executive Department by transferring certain functions of the PSA to the DICT for the purpose of expediting the rollout of the digital PhilSys ID,” remarked Remulla.
“To accomplish this, an appropriate Executive Order must be issued, directing the PSA to grant the DICT access to the data necessary for the production of digital PhilSys IDs,” he added.
