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Big idea: Can a national ID system tackle terrorism?

Three bombs on Valentine’s Day wrecked calm and cool in the financial centre of Makati and two other Philippine cities. The bombs, and frenetic talk that followed about terrorism rearing its ugly head again, had also apparently shattered sense and sanity in high government circles.

Lawmakers allied with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo have dangled a placebo - legislation requiring all Filipinos 15 years and older to secure an all-purpose government-issued ID.

Arroyo herself had pushed the idea in 2003 through a project that seeks to consolidate all databases on citizens stored in electronic systems of various government agencies. This week, she certified an anti-terrorism bill that seeks the ID system, and relaxes rules on wiretapping, as urgent legislation.

The idea of the ID as a national security weapon has been revived with terrorism as an excuse. Many other Western societies, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have tried but failed in recent years to secure popular and congressional vote for it. The spectre of 9/11 has made many world leaders think it is part of the tools they could use against terrorism.

In the Philippines, the proponents say a standard ID would afford the government chance to ferret out the good from the bad citizens, the terrorists from the non-terrorists. Only those with will or intent to commit crime, or even those with multiple spouses or sordid private secrets to keep, should worry, they add.

When first conceived in 1996 by former president Fidel V. Ramos, the idea was justified as an all-season pass for citizens to secure prompt and efficient basic social services. Even more, the ID was hailed as a shield against corruption that could "reduce, if not totally eradicate, fraudulent transactions and misrepresentations."

In 1996, in his Administative Order No. 38, Ramos christened the idea as a "National Computerized Identification Reference System."

In 2003, Arroyo launched what she called the "Philippine Government Information System Plan," which aims to consolidate into one network all of the government agencies’ electronic resources. Her critics saw it as a curtain raiser for a national ID system.

This week, amid a flurry of anti-terrorism bills filed by her allies in Congress, Arroyo gave go-ahead to a national ID system for all imaginable transactions a citizen has to do with government, including employment, social security, loan, immigration concerns. What weakens the proposal is its own reason for being, advisedly a false premise — an ID system could be an armor and shield against terrorism. At best, it is a silly proposition. Maverick senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, put it succinctly: "Would any self-respecting terrorist even bother to secure an ID if all he wants to do is destroy, thrash government, shatter the peace and law and order?"

Its touted raison d’etre exposed as flab, the proposed ID system draws even more critics because it is such a big scheme that would require a big amount of money to bankroll. One legislator estimates that with about 85 per cent of 80 million Filipinos above 15 years old, and each ID estimated to cost 35 to 50 pesos, the direct cost alone of producing the ID should amount to 1.6 billion pesos (about 29 million US dollars).

Feasibility is yet a third issue. Databases in the country are neither complete, nor current. For instance, 1 in every 4 Filipino mothers delivers babies at home, on account of their poverty or lack of access to medical care or both. That means that about a fourth of all Filipino babies are not even registered. That means a lot of Filipinos who would not even be counted at all among those who should be issued IDs.

Finally, the big issue of civil liberties caving in under the weight of government’s anti-terrorism campaign. Or put differently, a national ID system giving way to grave abuse, or wanton excesses, government and its soldiers and policemen may commit against the rights and liberties of citizens.

As early as 1998, the Philippine Supreme Court struck down the idea of a national ID system — Ramos-style — as unconstitutional. One judge averred: "So terrifying are the possibilities of a law ...making inroads into the private lives of the citizens, a virtual Big Brother looking over our shoulders, that it must, without delay, be ‘slain upon sight’ before our society turns totalitarian with each of us, a mindless robot."

The proposal "pressures the people to surrender their privacy by giving information about themselves on the pretext that it will facilitate delivery of basic services," the Supreme Court noted. The proposal is virtual licence, it added, for the government to compile in its computers what could be devastating dossiers on unsuspecting citizens."

To human rights groups, a national ID system is a "superficial, expensive quick fix" that could destroy more than build. They say the idea offers "a false sense of security" that could leave "law enforcers lazy in doing good police and intelligence work."

Even worst, in a developing country where food, education and health should be a basic priority government must finance, wasting precious little public funds on a national ID system is obscenity — pure and simple.

Malou Mangahas is a Manila-based commentator