Apportioning blame in ID fiasco

In 2022, a family of four adults trooped to a designated registration center for a national ID that promised to expedite business transactions with the government and private companies. A year later, the wife got an email notice that she could now print her ID and present it as a valid document for identification. The daughter got the same notice, the son is still waiting for his, while the husband’s ID — in the promised credit card format — was physically delivered to their address.

But despite assurances from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) that the ID card in a different format was valid for all transactions, and the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) threat of fining up to P500,000 establishments that refuse to honor it, the wife found that banks hardly glanced at her paper identification and asked for other government-issued IDs.

The ordeal must have been shared by the over 89 million national ID registrants that the PSA has recorded as of last month, such that the Monetary Board of BSP finally terminated in August its contract with AllCard Inc. (ACI), the supplier of Philippine Identification System ID cards, citing its “failure to deliver any or all of the goods specified in the contract.”

Valid proof of identity

Aside from seeking P640.9 million in reparation from AllCard, the BSP also authorized a blacklisting order to disqualify the company from participating in future biddings for all government projects.

According to BSP, ACI produced only 57.9 million prepersonalized national ID cards between 2022 and 2023, 58.1 million short of the targeted 116 million cards. This has resulted in a production loss of P1.06 billion, equivalent to 49.91 percent of the P2.1-billion contract awarded to AllCard, the BSP said.

The National ID project, which was enabled by Republic Act No. 11055 or the Philippine Identification System Act signed by former president Rodrigo Duterte in August 2018, was meant to provide valid proof of identity for Filipino citizens and resident aliens of the Philippines. The ID addresses the perennial problem of Filipinos presenting various identification documents in both public and private business transactions that have resulted in delays, corruption, and overall inconvenience and red tape in government dealings.

Blurry pictures

Terminated for failing to deliver on its contract for the “supply, delivery, installation, and commissioning” of the card production equipment for three years, the ACI is appealing the BSP decision, citing its “impressive” track record as a longtime supplier of drivers’ licenses, ATM cards, credit cards, and membership cards for several government agencies. Its firing, the company added, was based on “inaccurate information or reports.”

But how could the company dispute the unsolicited complaints — often posted with supporting pictures on the social media accounts of ID recipients — that detailed people’s frustration over erroneous information on their cards, misspelled names, poorly printed, fading, and blurry pictures, the inconsistent format of the official document, and delayed delivery? Would these firsthand experiences quality as “inaccurate”?

At the same time, the roles of both BSP and PSA in the fiasco should be subjected to scrutiny as well. In its 2021 audit report, the Commission on Audit blamed the BSP for failing to deliver the required number of ID cards, which the BSP in turn blamed on “pandemic restrictions, technical issues, lack of personnel to operate card personalization machines, and the limited supply of machine spare parts.” It also cited “system and connectivity issues with [PSA’s] IT solutions partners.”

‘Unacceptable’ delay

Three years later and after axing its contractor, has the BSP addressed other problems identified within its turf, particularly the lack of personnel and connectivity issues? How does it plan to continue and speed up card delivery while it looks for a new supplier?

The PSA meanwhile noted in November 2022, that “close matches” meant that its personnel had to manually verify the authenticity of the registrant’s information before finalizing the card.

But weren’t all those forms filled up with entries that registrants had to double-check before input and those biometrics meant to precisely solve this?

And if the authentication process and sheer volume of registrants were a problem, shouldn’t the agency have hired more competent personnel to help out? After all, according to the measure’s author, former senator Panfilo Lacson, the PSA had already received over P6 billion from Congress since 2018 to implement the project.

Lacson has urged the filing of court cases against parties involved in the “unacceptable” delay of six years in this laudable project, while Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has said that he’d seek a Senate hearing on the issue. And why not? When it comes to public funds and undelivered services paid for with taxpayer money, all parties involved must be held fully accountable and firmly sanctioned.