Did you know that there are two million Filipinos who remain without a valid proof of identity?
These people are those whose births have not been registered with the Philippine Statistics Authority, the agency responsible in recording vital information about every individual in the country, according to Engr. Marizza Grande, OIC assistant national statistician of the PSA Civil Registration Services.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has the most number of unregistered individuals with 464,046 followed by Region 4A (Calabarzon) with 251,138, Region 3 with 185,911, Region 12 (Soccssargen) with 175,676, and Region 6 (Western Visayas) with 141,232.
For the Cordillera, there are 42,000 individuals without birth records.
In line with the government’s commitment that 99.5 percent of Filipinos should have their birth registered with local civil registrars by 2024, Grande said the National Statistician and Civil Registrar General has launched a birth registration assistance project targeting persons in marginalized communities or those living in remote or geographically isolated and depressed areas, indigenous peoples, Muslim Filipinos, poorest sector in the country, and persons currently living outside their place of birth.
Through the assistance of local government units, the project will be implemented through the conduct of mobile registration or other strategies suitable in the area.
The PSA has started the project in Aklan where 10,000 IPs have been issued birth certificates.
“Meron sa kanila senior citizen na pero hindi pa pala rehistrado kaya importante na maabot natin sila,” Grande said.
Grande said the so-called barriers in registration have been minimized and the fees for late registration have been waived.
Fees in the issuance of birth certificate in security paper have also been waived.
Grande said reaching sectors with low birth registration records is also meant to strengthen the registration process in the national ID system where the birth certificate is the basic document required from citizens seeking to enlist with the PhilSys.
As of December 2021, over 50 million Filipinos have completed step 2 of the registration process, which is the gathering of biometrics information such as iris scans, fingerprints, and front-facing photographs. – Rimaliza A. Opiña
April 25, 2024
