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SEN. Maria Imelda Josefa “Imee” Marcos wants the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to explain how a foreign company harassed by the controversy won the tender to establish the national identification system, three days before the government preregisters 9 million Filipinos.
“This could be another Smartmatic situation,” Marcos said, citing that Indian firm Madras Security Printers and its Philippine partner Mega Data Corp. remained the only qualified bidders after bidding rules were changed midway.
Smartmatic was the controversial Philippine technology provider linked to fraud in the 2016 presidential election.
Later, the senator and vice president candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. claimed that he was deceived after a computer failure in the middle of the count where he abruptly led his rival, the then representative of Camarines Sur, María Leonor “Leni” Robredo , ahead, which ultimately resulted in his victory. An electoral court hearing Marcos’ protest has not yet ruled on the case.
“Unless NEDA and the PSA clarify this immediately, public skepticism towards national identification could derail the pre-registration phase that begins Monday,” Marcos said, adding that it could also delay the targets to register 40 million. of Filipinos for next year and the rest of the population in mid-2022.
Marcos’ warning comes as Acting Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua announced Friday that the PSA would begin the first step of registration in the Philippine Identification System (Philsys) on October 12.
Bidding requirement
The original tender requirement specified an on-premises system, in which a data center is physically configured on a selected site, but was later modified to include remote data hosting on a cloud-based system, according to the Philippine Computer Society Foundation. .
After the rules were changed, all other bidders, except Madras-Mega Data, dropped out of the selection process because they did not have time to modify their bidding proposals and meet the submission deadline reinstated by the PSA.
Marcos cited that Madras continues to be beset by controversy over its international contracts, citing news from Bangladesh and Africa about the failure to sign their contracts.
“We have to stay one step ahead of identity theft and financial fraud, from choosing the ID card material to installing and maintaining the system,” Marcos said.
“The integrity of our elections, banking access, health insurance, contact tracing, and government aid delivery will be threatened by a flawed national identification system,” Marcos warned.
Government goal
National statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said the first step of registration in Philsys involves first collecting demographic information on low-income heads of households in 664 cities and municipalities in 32 provinces in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
This will allow low-income heads of households with national IDs to open bank accounts so that they can receive financial assistance from the government digitally.
The second step of the registration involves the validation and biometric capture of the registrants, which will begin at the end of November until December 30 of this year.
The last step is the issuance of the Philsys number, or the PSN and Phil ID, starting in 2021.
Following the registration of low-income heads of households, Mapa said the PSA would make the registry available to the public in 2021 through local governments, partner agencies and other stakeholders in the hope that 92 million Filipinos would register. and issued IDs at the end. June 2022.
Mapa assured that the PSA will observe health and safety standards during the registration process.
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