Pinoys have had bad experiences with IDs
Pinoys have had bad experiences with IDs
Posted 00:48am (Mla time) Feb 23, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE PROPOSED National Identification Card System has once more violently divided public officials and the public the same way the value-added tax (VAT) has divided them. The Valentine's Day terrorist bombings has terrorized public officials into proposing the ID system, but the public is in bigger terror of an ID system than of bombs. The ID, which will contain basic information about the holder, will invade the privacy of the individual, a right guaranteed by the Constitution, say those who are opposed to it.
Curiously, Filipinos really like ID cards. The average Filipino has a few of them: a voter's ID, an SSS or GSIS ID, a driver's license, a company or school ID, a numbered vehicle sticker which identifies the owner of the vehicle, a credit card, a passport, a residence certificate, etc. These are all identification cards containing information about the individual, Senate President Franklin Drilon told the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday. The national ID will only combine in one card all the information already contained in all these different ID cards.
"What right to privacy is being violated by merely putting in one card the information the individual has already voluntarily put in the other cards?" Drilon asked. "Instead of having a wallet full of cards, he will have only one card."
Practically every civilized country in the world, including the United States which is the champion of democracy and privacy, has an ID system, Drilon noted. The Philippines is one of the very few that still doesn't have one.
Unfortunately, logic doesn't explain why Filipinos are allergic to a national ID system. The explanation is more psychological. Filipinos have had unpleasant experiences with IDs in the past.
During the Spanish regime, Filipinos were required to carry cedulas, which is the counterpart of today's residence certificate. It was a badge of servitude. Indios were required to show them to Guardia Civil sentries. So hated was the cedula that Andres Bonifacio and his Katipuneros tore up their cedulas in Balintawak as a gesture of their revolution against Spain.
During the Japanese Occupation, Filipinos were also required to show their residence certificates to Japanese sentries. If they didn't have any, they were slapped and taken to jail.
Filipinos are afraid the same thing will happen with a national ID system: people being accosted by cops and soldiers and told to produce their IDs and if they don't have any or they find something suspicious with the IDs, they would be jailed the same way the martial law regime of Marcos did. Can you blame Filipinos for being suspicious of IDs?
But the most practical reason against an ID system is the uselessness of it all. The system is the government's antidote to terrorism. But it is hard to understand how a piece of card or plastic will do it. Perhaps the theory is that it will identify a terrorist. How, I don't know. Perhaps the police will have a list of known terrorists and compare the names and photos on the list with those on the ID cards.
But as Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said, will a terrorist be foolish enough to put his own name on an ID? No, he will have a new identity. He will even try to alter his appearance.
And won't we just give more business to the Recto forgers? The Recto entrepreneurs (who by the way continue to ply their illegal trade openly without the police trying to stop them) are so good that they can produce almost any document one needs: passport, Torrens title, driver's license, bankbook, marriage certificate, school records, even FPJ's birth certificate showing that he was not a Filipino. Name it, they can produce it with such surprising accuracy that foreign embassies no longer accept Philippine documents as proof of anything.
Now if they can produce these documents convincingly, won't they try to produce IDs, too? Considering that there would be 80 million Filipinos who would need IDs, that would indeed be big business. Which means the whole exercise to flush out terrorists would be a waste of scarce money and an exercise in futility.
The government's answer to that is technology. The ID will not be the ordinary card but will be made of hard-to-duplicate plastic or some other material that will make a fake easy to detect. That remains to be proven. But even assuming it can be done, that means the ID will be frightfully expensive. And considering the millions of Filipinos who will ask for them, the whole exercise is going to cost tens of billions of pesos, money a bankrupt government cannot afford.
Which means, in turn, that this is not the time to do it. Even now, Congress is having a hard time passing a measure to increase the VAT because people strongly oppose it. How can the government ask the people to pay more taxes when it is not even trying to cut expenses but, on the contrary, is thinking of new ways to spend more money it doesn't even have yet?
Worse, the government is going to use part of that money to invade their privacy and even spy on them. If the government insists on implementing a national ID system, I think the next revolution will be preceded by the Cry of Mendiola when people will gather at this now famous street and cut up their plastic IDs.
But I have my own proposal to make Filipinos accept the ID system and even scramble to get one. Considering how many Filipinos crave for the green card, let's make our ID card green.
Posted 00:48am (Mla time) Feb 23, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE PROPOSED National Identification Card System has once more violently divided public officials and the public the same way the value-added tax (VAT) has divided them. The Valentine's Day terrorist bombings has terrorized public officials into proposing the ID system, but the public is in bigger terror of an ID system than of bombs. The ID, which will contain basic information about the holder, will invade the privacy of the individual, a right guaranteed by the Constitution, say those who are opposed to it.
Curiously, Filipinos really like ID cards. The average Filipino has a few of them: a voter's ID, an SSS or GSIS ID, a driver's license, a company or school ID, a numbered vehicle sticker which identifies the owner of the vehicle, a credit card, a passport, a residence certificate, etc. These are all identification cards containing information about the individual, Senate President Franklin Drilon told the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday. The national ID will only combine in one card all the information already contained in all these different ID cards.
"What right to privacy is being violated by merely putting in one card the information the individual has already voluntarily put in the other cards?" Drilon asked. "Instead of having a wallet full of cards, he will have only one card."
Practically every civilized country in the world, including the United States which is the champion of democracy and privacy, has an ID system, Drilon noted. The Philippines is one of the very few that still doesn't have one.
Unfortunately, logic doesn't explain why Filipinos are allergic to a national ID system. The explanation is more psychological. Filipinos have had unpleasant experiences with IDs in the past.
During the Spanish regime, Filipinos were required to carry cedulas, which is the counterpart of today's residence certificate. It was a badge of servitude. Indios were required to show them to Guardia Civil sentries. So hated was the cedula that Andres Bonifacio and his Katipuneros tore up their cedulas in Balintawak as a gesture of their revolution against Spain.
During the Japanese Occupation, Filipinos were also required to show their residence certificates to Japanese sentries. If they didn't have any, they were slapped and taken to jail.
Filipinos are afraid the same thing will happen with a national ID system: people being accosted by cops and soldiers and told to produce their IDs and if they don't have any or they find something suspicious with the IDs, they would be jailed the same way the martial law regime of Marcos did. Can you blame Filipinos for being suspicious of IDs?
But the most practical reason against an ID system is the uselessness of it all. The system is the government's antidote to terrorism. But it is hard to understand how a piece of card or plastic will do it. Perhaps the theory is that it will identify a terrorist. How, I don't know. Perhaps the police will have a list of known terrorists and compare the names and photos on the list with those on the ID cards.
But as Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said, will a terrorist be foolish enough to put his own name on an ID? No, he will have a new identity. He will even try to alter his appearance.
And won't we just give more business to the Recto forgers? The Recto entrepreneurs (who by the way continue to ply their illegal trade openly without the police trying to stop them) are so good that they can produce almost any document one needs: passport, Torrens title, driver's license, bankbook, marriage certificate, school records, even FPJ's birth certificate showing that he was not a Filipino. Name it, they can produce it with such surprising accuracy that foreign embassies no longer accept Philippine documents as proof of anything.
Now if they can produce these documents convincingly, won't they try to produce IDs, too? Considering that there would be 80 million Filipinos who would need IDs, that would indeed be big business. Which means the whole exercise to flush out terrorists would be a waste of scarce money and an exercise in futility.
The government's answer to that is technology. The ID will not be the ordinary card but will be made of hard-to-duplicate plastic or some other material that will make a fake easy to detect. That remains to be proven. But even assuming it can be done, that means the ID will be frightfully expensive. And considering the millions of Filipinos who will ask for them, the whole exercise is going to cost tens of billions of pesos, money a bankrupt government cannot afford.
Which means, in turn, that this is not the time to do it. Even now, Congress is having a hard time passing a measure to increase the VAT because people strongly oppose it. How can the government ask the people to pay more taxes when it is not even trying to cut expenses but, on the contrary, is thinking of new ways to spend more money it doesn't even have yet?
Worse, the government is going to use part of that money to invade their privacy and even spy on them. If the government insists on implementing a national ID system, I think the next revolution will be preceded by the Cry of Mendiola when people will gather at this now famous street and cut up their plastic IDs.
But I have my own proposal to make Filipinos accept the ID system and even scramble to get one. Considering how many Filipinos crave for the green card, let's make our ID card green.
posted by Dante at 4:50 PM
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