MANILA – The Philippine government is “fixing” the new national ID registration's online system after a technical problem obstructed its pilot launch last April 30, the National Economic Development Authority said Monday.

Only 2,000 individuals were able to register online on the first day because the system could not handle the demand from about 46,000 users on the first minute, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua told ANC’s Headstart.

Chua said the system was tested for 16,000 simultaneous users per minute with the ability to scale to 35,000 per minute.

“What we do right now is to review our system so we can increase the load. The problem is really the demand. It’s like you opened a new theme park or restaurant, although you are ready for the peak during holidays or weekends, sometimes on the first day, everyone wants to participate. We thanked them but we are very sorry also for what happened,” Chua said.

“We assure you that we are fixing this. We have experts all over the world and we will relaunch it as soon as we can,” he added.

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Despite the glitch, Chua thanked the Filipino people for “patronizing” the online registration.

Online registration is the first step in acquiring a national ID.

The Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) has so far registered 33.3 million for step 1 after a house-to-house collection of data was initiated in October.

Out of the total, at least 6.4 million were able to complete step 2 or the on-site biometrics data collection, Chua said.

The PhilSys system, which consistently showed an error message on Friday, is “still running” but only few people can successfully enter and register, he said.

Chua said the government is hoping to relaunch the website in the coming days.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed the measure mandating the national ID in 2018.

Economic managers have said the national ID would help hasten distribution of social aid, broaden access to financial services and streamline the COVID-19 vaccination program.

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