In 2018, the Philippine government proudly rolled out the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys), a national ID program envisioned to simplify identity verification and access to public services. It promised a future where citizens no longer need to juggle multiple IDs for government transactions. Fast forward to 2025, and the situation is far from the digital utopia once envisioned. Millions of Filipinos still don’t have their physical cards, and worse, those who received them complain they’re useless for most services. So the burning question remains: Is the national ID program dead? Even I, personally, who was one of the first in the entire Philippines who applied for the National ID when a specific signing up program was organized by the DICT and PSA itself in 2020 at the DICT Headquarters, haven’t yet received my National ID. That’s already 6 years that I’ve waited.
What was supposed to be the cornerstone of a digital government has turned into a drawn-out embarrassment. Despite repeated promises by the PSA and DICT to ramp up production and distribution, delays continue to plague the system. According to government data, over 80 million Filipinos have registered—but not all have received usable physical or digital IDs. Even those with IDs find they’re rarely accepted in banks, government offices, or telco providers. How can a national ID system exist in theory but fail in function?
Accountability is where this issue becomes even more infuriating. The Duterte administration initiated the program and threw budget after budget at the PSA to make it happen. But under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., it appears no one wants to own the mess. The current administration inherited a problem but failed to fix it. Despite being in office for over two years, President BBM and his Cabinet have not championed or streamlined the implementation of the program. There is a clear lack of urgency, transparency, and coordination among the involved agencies.
Where is the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) in all of this? Supposedly the lead agency on e-governance, the DICT has been conspicuously silent or altogether absent in aggressively solving the digital infrastructure gaps the ID system needs. The CICC, a supposed cybersecurity watchdog under the DICT, has been too busy posting memes on social media while the nation’s digital systems rot from within. The public deserves answers—and heads should roll if needed.
Worse, this failure bleeds into every other government digitization plan. The e-Gov app, yet another digital initiative, is disjointed from PhilSys. This fragmentation undermines the very point of having a unified national ID. In other countries, a single ID number unlocks everything—from tax filing and medical benefits to business registrations. In the Philippines, it unlocks nothing but frustration and bureaucracy.
The delay isn’t just a technical issue—it’s economic sabotage. A functional national ID would empower millions of unbanked Filipinos to access financial services, apply for aid, register for jobs, or start small businesses. Instead, the inefficiency of the program forces citizens to waste time and money navigating redundant, manual processes—further entrenching poverty.
There’s also the issue of trust. Every failed promise about the national ID chips away at the public’s faith in digital governance. When leaders can’t deliver something as basic as an ID, how can we believe they’re ready for AI, blockchain integration, or national cybersecurity strategy? Digital transformation is more than buzzwords; it demands competence, accountability, and execution.
To fix this, the DICT must lead an inter-agency overhaul. A centralized database accessible to all government departments, a secure authentication protocol, and public-private partnerships for card distribution must be prioritized. The PSA must streamline its bureaucracy, or leadership should be replaced with capable technocrats. The President must also stop passing the blame and show political will—because this program was never just about IDs. It was about national modernization.
If the BBM administration fails to rescue this once-promising project, it will cement its reputation as another government that overpromised and underdelivered. The longer this drags on, the more it proves that digital transformation under this regime is more talk than truth.
And so, we ask again: Is the national ID program dead? No—but it’s on life support. If the government doesn’t resuscitate it soon with real leadership and decisive action, it might as well be buried next to every other failed tech initiative of this administration, and the most glaring truth that nobody wants to face is how badly we need leaders who can prioritize technological development in the nation’s roadmap towards the future.
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Rafael “Raffy” Gutierrez is a veteran Technology Trainer with over 25 years of experience in networking, systems design, and diverse computer technologies.
