The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and its attached agency, the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA), are now gearing up for the nationwide scale up of the persons with disabilities’ (PWD) unified identification (ID) system this October.

“Yung scale up po (The scale up) will commence by Oct. 13, and these include all LGUs (local government units) within the Philippines. So, starting Oct. 13 po,” Assistant Secretary for Information and Communications Technology Johannes Paulus Acuña told reporters during a media forum Thursday at the DSWD Central Office in Quezon City.

For the nationwide scale up, he said they expect to register 200,000 PWDs in the unified system.

Acuña, who is also the DSWD’s Chief Information Officer, said the unified ID system received good feedback from participating persons with disabilities during the pre-pilot and pilot implementation of the system.

During the pre-pilot implementation from Aug. 11 to Sept. 12 in Manila, Muntinlupa, Pasay, San Miguel in Bulacan, and Sta. Rosa in Laguna, he cited the efficiency of the system based on the turnaround time to complete the registration process.

“The feedback coming from the experience from the registration was good. From what we observed during the pre-pilot, the turnaround time for persons with disabilities to get registered was around seven to 10 minutes,” Acuña said.

For the conduct of the pilot implementation with the selected 35 LGUs, he said they were able to receive a positive net satisfaction rating of 4.6 out of 5 from participating Persons with Disability Affairs Offices (PDAO) during an orientation on Sept. 10 to 12.

As of press time, some 56 LGU users from the pilot areas were already registered in the unified ID system. The users were able to encode 311 ID data in the system, of which 256 were already approved, while 55 applications are still under review by concerned PDAOs.

For the next steps, Acuña said the NCDA is currently conducting a series of orientations with the new batch of LGUs regarding the unified online system.

The DSWD’s attached agency will also issue guidelines and transition plans regarding the next steps for the systems in the coming months.

Among the security features of the unified ID system is a digital ID that can be accessible via mobile app or web portal. The digital ID has a QR code that can be scanned by business establishments for quick verification.

The DSWD is also working with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to ensure that the PWD unified ID system will be included in the eGovPH app.

The unified PWD ID system is an initiative led by DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian to combat the proliferation of fake PWD IDs in public.

It is also aligned with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s agenda to promote more inclusive programs and policies for vulnerable sectors. (PNA)