The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has implemented additional requirements for the late registration of births to prevent abuse, such as what is believed to have happened in the case of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo.
Late registration is registration done 30 days after birth.
Assistant National Statistician Engineer Marizza Grande, in the hearing of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, said they have a 2021 joint memorandum circular with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on the delayed registration process.
“In addition to the previous na rules on the delayed registration, we required the mandatory submission of barangay certificates and also additional documents such as birth or passport of the parents if they are foreigners. So that was in 2021,” Grande said on Monday.
She explained that they reviewed the registration process of birth in light of the case of Guo, a suspected Chinese spy who used late registration.
“Additional mandatory as part of the requirements now is to personally appear the registrant, if of age will have to personally appear in the local civil registrars. Then they have to enroll in the national ID," Grande said.
"Because with [the] national ID, we can get the biometrics, not only the demographic but the biometric and the photo of that person. And also some identification of the parents, the parents of the registrant which was not required before,” she explained.
She said that 1.3 million Filipinos registered on time in 2023, while late registrants numbered 1.027 million.
Meanwhile, according to the 2020 data census of population, 96.6 percent have birth certificates, while 3.6 million are unregistered births.
The PSA launched its Birth Registration Assistance Project in February 2022 to register vulnerable sectors and has now registered 480,000 people of the 2 million target.
Grande also said they support the institutionalization of the barangay civil registry system and are developing the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system (eCRVS).
