SOME people who already got their national ID under the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) found it useful in their transactions, while a person who only received the ID’s paper version feared that it would not be honored at banks.
Toledo City resident Via Birao received the digital version or ePhilID that’s printed on paper last February, 19 months after registering for it in her barangay. She finds it unfair that some have been given the card version, while others, like her, were given only the paper version.
Birao said she was doubtful of using the temporary ID because she fears that banks and other offices may not honor it. But according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), registered Filipinos can already use their ePhilIDs while waiting for the delivery of their PhilID printed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Birao is one of 27.14 million Filipinos who are still waiting for their physical ID cards (PhilIDs) to be released by the PSA.
Birao said she did not expect that it would take more than a year before she could get her ID.
“I did not expect it would take that long because gipadali-dali gyud mi og linya sa (we were hurriedly gathered at the) covered court,” Birao told SunStar Cebu on Monday, March 27, 2023.
Birao said she endured the long line and waiting time when she registered to get a national ID in their barangay’s covered court in July 2021.
Given the long waiting time, she said it would have been better if the agency just released the real and permanent national ID, instead of releasing a temporary one.
Unlike Birao, a 61-year-old woman who declined to be named got her national ID two months after she registered.
She registered in May 2021 and the national ID was delivered to her house in Barangay San Roque, Cebu City in July of the same year.
However, she said she was not using her national ID for her transactions since she has been using her senior citizen ID.
Despite not using it, she finds it useful as an addition to the list of valid IDs she has.
Nikki Villegas, 25, shared the same sentiment with the elderly woman. Villegas said she is using her passport and driver’s license in most of her transactions, but the national ID is somehow useful as it is the only ID she has in her pocket.
Villegas applied for the national ID registration in September 2021 and she got her ID only in January of this year.
She recalled that the only time she used her national ID was when the cashier asked for a valid ID for proof when she paid using her credit card.
“Other than that, it’s really just an addition to my collection of valid IDs,” she said.
For Carl James Cabarles, the national ID is “very helpful” as it is the only valid ID he currently has.
“For people like me who do not have any other valid ID except for this, it’s very helpful,” he said.