Same dog, same collar

‘The opposition to having a national ID system is too strong.’

It’s not that people do not realize the benefit of having a single identification document to use in official and private transactions. Now, one has to carry in his wallet an SSS or GSIS card (whichever is applicable), a voter’s ID, a tax identification card, a PhilHealth card and a company ID to prove one’s legitimate claim to any right, privilege or entitlement.

It’s simply that people fear a national ID system will be an unwelcome intrusion into their privacy or, worse, will be used to mark them as lawbreakers, deviants, non-conformists or in general, socially and politically unreliable.

Many are prepared to trade off the risk of violations of their privacy for convenience. But not under the Arroyo administration which has a record of playing fast and loose with constitutionally enshrined rights.

Most legislators, especially the senators, know the sentiments on the ground and some have well-grounded fears of a creeping tyranny, of which the very resurrection of the national ID system is a case in point.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that President Fidel Ramos exceeded his powers when he issued an executive order adopting a national ID system. The high court said the scheme requires legislation.

Cognizant of the SC ruling, Arroyo issued in 2006 an order adopting a single ID for transacting business with government agencies. The issuance was questioned, but the SC said it did not run against its 1998 ruling.

A "single government ID" was supposed to be in place by January last year. Why the timetable was not met no one in government has explained.

This was how this stood before the Armed Forces, in the first command conference with Arroyo this year, revived the national ID proposal.

If the AFP is talking about the meeting the one-year delayed "single government ID" system, there’s no problem. But it apparently isn’t. It is talking about an ID system that it claimed would help it meet the 2010 deadline in crushing the communist rebellion. The system the AFP wants in place is one that would allow it to identify a rebel or rebel sympathizer presumably at checkpoints and during "zonas."

We are back to a version of Ramos’ AO 308 which the Supreme Court found abhorrent for pressuring "people to surrender their privacy by giving information about themselves on the pretext that it will facilitate delivery of basic services."