EDITORIAL — More hiccups for the national ID

There is another stumbling block in the quest to provide national IDs to Filipinos after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas terminated its contract with its supplier of cards and equipment for the IDs for failure to fulfill and perform the services in its deal with the bank.

We won’t get into the details because that would take up much of the space here, suffice it to say that those who haven’t received their IDs may have to wait even longer.

Now Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III wants to investigate the matter.

"It seems that there will be another delay in the production and delivery of national IDs. The Senate should investigate this matter,” he said in an online news report.

A national ID is actually a good thing. Different agencies and offices often ask Filipinos to present different kinds of IDs and documents just to prove who they are, but this one document should lay any doubt regarding one’s identity to rest. This concept is actually being used to good effect in other countries.

However, the execution here was flawed from the beginning. When the IDs were issued people noticed that they don’t show the owner’s signature, making it easy to fake. Then there were names that were misspelled, or photos of ID owners that were too blurred to identify.

The delay in issuance is another thing entirely. And that delay is unpredictably inconsistent. Couples have applied for an ID together only one to have person received the ID, or someone who applied early for it didn’t get it while someone who applied very late for it did.

Until now many people who applied for that ID haven’t seen hide nor hair of it years later. And now this.

Of course, we lament the money that has been wasted because of issues and lack of foresight by some people. And let’s not forget that this is actually taxpayers’ money.

Those handling this national ID project better get their act together if they still want this to succeed.