Gov. Albert Garcia opening the PhilSys registration center at The Bunker. Photo by Ernie Esconde
BALANGA CITY — The Philippine Statistics Authority on Monday opened an additional registration center for the national identification or Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) at the Capitol compound here.
It is located in the One-Stop-Shop at the second floor of the five-storey The Bunker, seat of the provincial government.
PSA Bataan chief Francisco Corpuz said the satellite office will greatly help in the realization of their target to register in the PhilSys 600,000 individuals in the province.
He said that 112,000 have already undergone Step 2 registration from less than 300,000 pre-registered under the Step 1 process from November 2020 to April 30 this year.
Corpuz said that Step 2 will go on until December 2021 while Step 1 will proceed by online registration starting April 30 this year.
Step 1 process involves the collection of demographic information of the registrants while Step 2 is the capturing of biometric information such as fingerprints, iris scan and front-facing photograph like what are presently being done in PSA registration centers in 11 towns and a city in Bataan, except in Bagac town.
Registration in the Bagac center which is located at the mezzanine of the municipal hall has stopped operation since March 24, 2021 due to the spike in Covid-19 cases in the municipality.
Corpuz said that once a center is closed, they institute catch-up plan by transferring the registration kits to nearby municipalities.
He said that the satellite office will help speed-up the Step 2 registration scheme. They can accommodate in the new center 180 registrants daily from Mondays to Fridays.
Corpuz called on Bataeños to support the national ID registration.
Gov. Albert Garcia who joined Corpuz in the ribbon-cutting to signal the opening of the PhilSys center was among the registrants for Step 2. He underwent iris scan, fingerprinting and front-facing photograph.
PSA staff saw to it that after every registrant, the kits were disinfected.
The governor said that the national ID is very important to speed-up delivery of transactions, services and financial assistance to the right persons.
“Nitong pandemya ay nasubukan ang sistema sa ating gobyerno mula national, provincial, city, municipal at pati sa barangay na kapag nagbibigay ng ayuda minsan ay nabibigyan ang hindi dapat bigyan at ang mga dapat bigyan ay hindi nabibigyan at kung minsan ay nade–delay at ito ay dahil sa lack of information o identification,” Garcia said.
The government will be able to immediately deliver basic services to people properly identified through the national ID as “mabilis ang transaksiyon,” he said.
“Dito sa One–Stop–Shop nagbukas ang PSA para wala ng pila. Hindi nakabilad sa araw ang mga tao dahil ang iba’t ibang opisina ng national government, provincial government and other entities ay nasa isang lugar na lang,” the governor furthered. “Ang purpose nito ay para maging efficient, walang red-tape at mabilis na transaksyon para sa mamamayan.”
