A Philippine Statistics Authority official said more than 1.7 million Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) cards were distributed in the country.

During the ''Laging Handa'' virtual briefing, PSA Assistant Secretary Rose Bautista the ID card distribution which is the third step of the PhilSys process was being done by the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhilPost).

"As of September 10, 2021, 42 million Filipinos have already completed the first step of registration, in all provinces of the country, including the NCR," she said.

"When it comes to step two, it is the collection of the biometrics. We have registered 30 million Filipinos nationwide as of September 10, even if we only started in 32 provinces last January," she added.

Bautista said the PSA is targeting to reach 70 million for the first step, and 50 million for the second step of registration before the end of 2021.

She said more than five million individuals who completed their PhilSys registration also opened accounts in Landbank.

"One of the objectives of PhilSys is financial inclusion. This is why if they will notice in the registration centers we also have Landbank because they can also open a bank account. This is for the goal of financial inclusion of PhilSys and more than five million individuals have already opened their Landbank accounts," she added.

Bautista said the PSA is coordinating with the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas and other financial institutions and other government agencies to acknowledge the PhilSys ID.

"We are experiencing birth pains, so to speak, the ID being a new one and the ID not having a signature, that is the biggest challenge to us. But we will not stop, we are advocating for acceptance. In fact, PSA has issued advisory, and several government agencies have actually issued memorandum and orders like DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs, BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas), DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government), BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and Phil Post to honor our ID," she said.

"We also continue to talk with the Bangko Sentral as well as financial institutions to accept our ID as valid proof of identity. We are doing webinars, to describe the ID for the users to make sure that ID's that will be presented to them are not fake. So we do webinars with financial institutions. We have already done two of these webinars and we have plans to do more," she added. Robina Asido/DMS