Monday, January 20, 2014

USING NATIONAL ID IN PHILIPPINES

National ID card is a form of identification that is required for each citizen or resident of an issuing country to carry all the times.  It is issued by government as means of tracking their citizens, taxation, provide government benefits, health care and other government transactions.  For ultimate identity, it has portrait, signature specimen, biometric information including fingerprint and unique identification number.  It is a permanent proper identification to prove one’s identity.  Because of its ultimate legality, it is almost essential to have one to access both government and private facilities such as obtaining driver licence, applying gun permit, applying a job, opening a bank account, credit card, and exercising the right to suffrage.

While the head of the state has to ensure the national security above all, implementing national ID unmasks the potential terrorists and rebels, guard against illegal immigrants, and enhance national security.  Easy to label government profiling since it’s categorically monitors the suspected antagonist and radical of the state.  But apart from administrative cases, having the national badge number can easily identify to detect fraud, crime acts and locate the outlaws.  Since everyone is liable to their act and biometric information will not lie, the holders will be very cautious to enter in an anomalous transaction.  Risking your own identity, who will have the nerve to engineer a scam?  An isolate case might come but overall, no one will dare to detect that easy to form drug syndicates, get involved in pork barrel scam, build a pyramid scam, sending spam messages, operate illegal and others.  Biometrics controls duplicating, tampering and forging to flee accountability, then by all means everyone will not hesitate to protect themselves.

If you are not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to fear.  The fear of national ID is actually about politics.  Underlying the fear on the card is the possibility of increasing the power of the authorities, be used for domestic spying, access our information, finance and whereabouts, be used against the individual, violation on civil liberties and privacy rights, and abuse the intent of the Constitution.  To lose this fear, the trust must build.  The government officials then must be trustworthy.  So what if the government can access our physical movements? Like father to his children, our government has every right to watch our whereabouts.  Potential illegal movements have to intercept to ensure our general welfare.   Invasion of privacy, civil rights harassment, less freedom, and fear of surveillance are major concerns but it has to be viewed in another standpoint.  It’s all for our own good.

If it is like father to his children, then what we really need is the trust.  As long as our government proves its trustworthy, there will be peace of mind in ourselves.  If the persons in authority are true to their duties, people will entrust their information like we already did in hospitals, banks, schools and companies.  We’ve entrusted our personal information in these private entities so why not with our own government?   But the situation is with the current trust rating, our government is not yet prepared to implement national ID.  Their level of maturity is low to adhere in the very purpose of identification card, instead the abuse of national ID will take advantage.  With the reputation of the general politicians and police institution, it is not improbable that there should be second thought of believing in national ID.

I don’t know if my favor in national ID is shallowness.  Maybe I am sincere in nature that is why it is no big deal for me to entrust myself to the government that there is no security breaches of information.  If many feel having a national badge number make them discriminated being the marginalized poor, so what if the government know our economic status?  So what if the government know I am poor, as long as I do not violate the laws, peace and order.  Their main concern will be the national threat that personal affair is a little thing that the national security will not put at stake anyway.   If the government officials, low enforcers, and the persons in authority are trusty, honorable and dependable, and if the abiding citizens are trustful, submissive and unsuspecting, then using the national ID is a mutual acceptable and understandable issue that is far from debate, disagreement, and controversy.





By Alex V. VillamayoR
January 20, 2014

(Note: 90% researched)

No comments: