Subsidizing the government’s ineptness

A few days ago, I went to a Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) satellite office in a mall to follow up on the status of my national ID. I was told that it is ready but could not yet be physically issued. Instead, I was issued a printout on regular paper. I was advised to have it laminated, which I think is necessary to keep the ID copy intact. I had my ID laminated for P25. This, I think, is the average cost of laminating an ID of that size.

Now according to the Inquirer, a COA report noted that as of end-2021, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the agency mandated to print the IDs, “delivered only 27,356,750 pre-personalized cards or 76 percent of the 36 million required number of IDs for last year. Previously, in 2020 and 2021, the BSP delivered only 8,764,556 personalized cards, a measly 17.53 percent of the 50 million required number of IDs for those years” (“What’s delaying nat’l ID?” 7/19/22).

If we take BSP’s backlog for 2021, there are 8,643,250 unissued IDs as of the start of the year. Assuming that 10 percent were issued as of October, that leaves us with 7,778,925 unissued IDs. Assuming that all of those numbers will have their IDs printed out and laminated, the total cost of lamination will be P194,473,125. This is what private citizens collectively subsidize what the government should have been spending for its ineptness.

Why couldn’t PhilSys laminate the IDs for free?

Fermin P. Manalo Jr., fmanalojr@gmail.com