Registration for the Philippine Identification System is ongoing, with some 20 million Filipinos already registered as of the start of the month. This is according to the Philippine Statistics Authority or PSA, which is in charge of the PhilSys registration.
The PSA also handles national census activities, which are conducted every few years, with the latest carried out last year despite the COVID-19 pandemic. So an informal “census” reportedly being carried out by police in certain barangays is raising eyebrows.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former police chief, said he had received reports that the informal data gathering uses funds from the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. His claim has not been fully refuted by the government.
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Philippine National Police chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar denied PNP involvement in the informal census. On the other hand, presidential spokesman Harry Roque defended the activity, which he described as “active police community operations” that have been implemented “for a long time” even when Lacson was PNP chief.
Roque maintained that no one is being forced to provide personal information and that the activity is being done “in the spirit of volunteerism.” The data gathering is needed, he said, against terrorists, the illegal drug menace and other threats. Lacson, on the other hand, believes the information will be used in the 2022 elections.
There could be a legitimate motive for the data gathering, but the government will have to come up with a clear explanation, especially since the PhilSys national ID is supposed to provide the basic personal information needed by all Filipinos from ages 15 years and older. There are also questions on how voluntary the activity can be when state security forces are the ones gathering the information. Will people especially in impoverished areas dare to refuse to participate?
The best way for the government to dispel suspicions is to provide clarity. This can start with a definite declaration on who is in charge and which government agency is implementing the data collection amid a raging pandemic. The government can then specify the objective, and how the activity is being funded. In providing clarity, the government can heed its own admonition to those who had opposed the implementation of the national ID: if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
EDITORIAL
Indeed when you have nothing to hide there's nothing to fear of. I just remember last March a group of people from government gather our data, they said it's for national Id so everyone go there to register. They take our identification and image of us. And then just last month. They said the data they gather is not validated to we need to take another one this time we went to baranggay hall
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