The country’s postmaster has assured that all Philippine Identification System cards handed over to Philippine Postal Corporation offices will be delivered to the doorsteps of their owners.
Interviewed on the Daily Tribune’s digital show Straight Talk, PhilPost postmaster general Norman Fulgencio maintained that the distribution of Philsys ID cards are unrelenting despite a surge of deliveries from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
“As of 23 September, we have received a total of 20,750,000 because there was a surge of delivery (of the IDs) from the PSA for the last two months. Before 30 July, we were hitting about 95 percent. So, right now as of 23 September out of the 20,750,000, we have already delivered 16.5 million,” he said.
And as of 24 July, Fulgencio said the deliveries of about 2 million are ongoing, while 1.5 million are at the Central Main Exchange of the PhilPost for processing.
“All IDs are intact. We will know by 6 October what our actual delivery is,” he added.
He said that it is unfair to blame the PhilPost for the discrepancies in the deliveries.
“What we receive is what we deliver. We cannot deliver what we don’t have. All deliveries have received copies and reported accordingly. If there are delays on our part, it’s a very minimal balance of 3.5 million. But our deliveries are still ongoing, even on weekends. We started in May 2021, and we are delivering even on weekends, even during the height of the pandemic,” he explained.
Fulgencio said the PhilPost is sort of overwhelmed as the production of IDs was accelerated by the PSA.
Earlier, Fulgencio said citizens can verify or check their Phil ID through the PhilPost website.
If the result is “Not Found”, he said it means that the PhilSys ID has not been received by the Post Office.
Digitization
Fulgencio revealed that national IDs go through mechanical sorting that’s why they are now easy to sort by region.
“It arrives in bulk, and we don’t know where it will be delivered. The machine sorts the IDs per region, just like the counting machine used in banks that sorts money. The machine was procured and operated during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte,” he said.
The capacity of the mail sorting machine is 40,000 letters/mail per hour, he said.
Other efforts to digitize operations in PhilPost include the computerization and digitization of its internal process, including its enterprise resource planning composed of the mail management system, human resource information system, financial counter system, and financial management system.
“The financial management system is just waiting for the approval of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and may be launched in two weeks, while the rest is almost 96 percent complete. We also established the command center to monitor all activities of the post offices nationwide and to keep the Central Post Office updated,” he added.
Moreover, he said PhilPost has also established a customer hotline team that answers customers and complaints, with 40 personnel working from 8 to 5 p.m.
“From before 150 complaints, we brought it down from 5 to 10 and we have been consistently 100 percent in our 888 complaints from August 2021 up to this date. We were even included by the Civil Service Commission as the Top 9 on the GOCCs that have been addressing complaints and answering inquiries. Our website is also updated and new, plus we already have online payment on duties and taxes and for our philatelic stamps. So far, we have addressed our inefficiencies,” he said.
During last month’s celebration of the 60th founding Anniversary of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union, an intergovernmental organization, Fulgencio presented the gains of the Philippine Post Office in pushing for the digital innovation and modernization of PhilPost.
Fulgencio said, “under the new administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., he prioritized the digitalization of public services towards greater efficiency and accountability of public services including the Post Office. In these ever-changing times, digital innovation is the only way to go for businesses to be relevant.”
He added, “the e-commerce revolution presents a vast economic potential for the Asia-Pacific being one of the largest regions in the Universal Postal Union. There is a need for each country to collaborate and cooperate effectively amid the rapid advancement in technology and globalization.”