Rommel O.

Morfe April 19, 2017

JD4 – 1A Atty. Ruben Ayson Jr.
National I.D. System
The Congress is now on the issue of establishing the national I.D. system in the
country. The ID system shall provide official identification of all citizens of the country
through the issuance of a Filipino ID card and shall gradually convert and consolidate all
existing government-initiated identification systems into one integrated and efficient
identification system.

The Filipino ID card shall be mandatory and shall be valid for life. It shall only be
replaced when a child reaches the age of 18, when there is a change in name and family
like in a marriage, or for lost or destroyed ID card.

Under the proposed measure, Filipinos get to renew their ID free of charge when
they reach the age of 60. It shall have the imprinted photograph, name, birth date, gender,
date of issue, signature of the owner, the corresponding individual serial number issued
by the Philippine Statistics Authority and other data as necessary1

The provisions in the bill proposed by the house seem to be easy implemented but
in reality it is not possible that all Filipino citizens will have this I.D. It is similar to some
identification that the government had already been issued to its citizens. For example,
NBI clearance, issued by the National Bureau of Investigation, has a similar feature
compare to the national I.D. It is to be considered that this national I.D. has already
inexistence but in a different form.

The purpose of the implementation is to combat criminality and terrorism. The

government will easily identify a possible threat in the national security if they have the
information. This purpose, I think, will not attained. Terrorist and criminal will continue
to obtain, by legal and illegal means, the documents needed to get a government ID.
Digital fingerprints won’t prove real identity. The carrier has obtained what could easily
be fraudulent document.

The right to privacy is a constitutional right, granted recognition independently of

its identification with liberty. It is recognized and enshrined in several provisions of our
Constitution, specifically in Sections 1, 2, 3 (1), 6, 8 and 17 of the Bill of Rights. Zones
of privacy are also recognized and protected in our laws, including certain provisions of
the Civil Code and the Revised Penal Code, as well as in special laws (e.g., Anti-
Wiretapping Law, the Secrecy of Bank Deposit Act and the Intellectual Property Code)2.

1
See http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/11/16/belmonte-files-national-id-system-bill
2
See http://jlp-law.com/blog/cases-on-the-national-identification-id-system/
 It was held in the case of Ople v. Torres3, where the Supreme Court declares
ADOPTION OF A NATIONAL COMPUTERIZED IDENTIFICATION REFERENCE
SYSTEM (E.O 308) unconstitutional, that the right to privacy is one of the most threatened
rights of man living in a mass society. The threats emanate from various sources —
governments, journalists, employers, social scientists. The implementation of the national
ID pressures the people to surrender their privacy by giving information about them. It
will give the power to the Government to compile a devastating record against
unsuspecting citizens. Such information can also be used by the government to powerless
individual who criticize the acts of the government. Therefore, the implementation of the
national ID system will affect the right to privacy.

3
G.R. No. 127685 (1998)