A nation of many IDs

Chockful of Nuts is a chain selling coffee brewed from various coffee beans. In our country, we have a chockful of ID cards.

A first-grader in a UP Village school has an ID as long as his forearm though he goes to school in uniform, which makes the ID card superfluous. Depending on where they reside, his parents may have GSIS or SSS ID cards, barangay ID, Voter’s ID, Senior Citizen ID, and other IDs. On top of these cards is the National ID that is supposed to be the only card needed for all purposes, but not likely.

Likely would be more ID cards to come. Note the P700 OFW card proposed by the Department of Labor and Employment that was aborted because overseas Filipino workers objected as the card would be useless since their host countries issue their own ID cards.

IDs need not be ubiquitous and mandatory. As with the first grader in school uniform, with one who is obviously a senior citizen, a senior citizen card would be superfluous.

Jose J. Ferrer Jr., [email protected]