EDITORIAL - More issues regarding the national ID

The Department of the Interior and Local Government has ordered all governors and city and municipal mayors to prioritize the national ID and its electronic format on the list of accepted identification documents.

“Republic Act 11055, otherwise known as the Philippine Identification System Act, mandates the establishment of a single national identification system to register all Filipinos and resident aliens in the Philippines,” said DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos.

This is ideal. The concept of the national ID was good in that it is meant to replace all other IDs including passport, driver’s license, voter’s ID, among others in transactions. So instead of bringing a bunch of different ID’s to transact with a local government unit office you should only have to bring this one ID and everything will go smoothly.

Except for the fact that until now millions of people still haven’t seen hide nor hair of the national ID they posed for years ago. Where are they?

Whoever is printing or distributing those ID’s needs to move fast as people grow older. Considering how many years it has been and how people are wont to change their appearance from time to time it’s likely some people won’t even recognize themselves in those ID’s anymore.

The image of the owner is important because the ID lacks one crucial security feature; the owner’s signature.

We were harping on this for quite a while; why does something as important as a one-for-all ID lack this all-important identifying safeguard?

There’s another issue with the national ID’s; the Land Bank of the Philippines, one of the banks that does frequent business with the government, still doesn’t recognize them, according to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.

We aren’t sure why this is the case, but we surmise it has to do with the lack of signature. Again, while photos can be easily faked considering what technologies we have today, one’s handwriting is more difficult to duplicate.

The government and the banks and LGU offices better get their act together. Those who finally get their national ID’s after years of waiting may have waited for nothing if these are still suspect when taken to some banks or offices.