IDphobia

Much talk has been made of the recent attempts to implement or to prevent the implementation of the RFID system. We are reminded of the same brouhaha that erupted when President Ramos tried to implement a national ID system during his term. The debate over the national ID system reached the Supreme Court in the 1998 case of Ople vs. Torres. In a vote of 8 to 6, a divided court declared Administrative Order No. 308 entitled "Adoption of a National Computerized Identification Reference System" null and void for being unconstitutional.

Chief Justice (then Associate Justice) Puno's ponencia ended with a dire warning:

Given the record-keeping power of the computer, only the indifferent will fail to perceive the danger that A.O. No. 308 gives the government the power to compile a devastating dossier against unsuspecting citizens. It is timely to take note of the well-worded warning of Kalvin, Jr., "the disturbing result could be that everyone will live burdened by an unerasable record of his past and his limitations. In a way, the threat is that because of its record-keeping, the society will have lost its benign capacity to forget."

These words encapsulate the reason behind the Filipino's persistent fear of IDs. His phobia is the sum of two fears: the fear of technology and the fear of government abuse.

He is afraid of technology for its advance is too fast for him to keep up with. New gadgets and gizmos come out so fast that he had barely gotten used to one when another comes out and makes it obsolete. His fear is that every detail of his past, especially his mistakes, would forever be recorded, ready to be retrieved by those whose intentions he does not trust.

Enter his fear of the government and its propensity to abuse its power. For him, technology is too sharp a sword to be wielded by the hands of too untrustworthy an institution. The mind of the Filipino cannot rest at ease when technology takes the form of a Sword of Damocles hanging over his head held by a flimsy thread spun by his government.

It is not a pretty picture. It is colored by distrust and focused on danger while opportunity, progress and growth are smeared by a dark shade of fear. The Filipino looked at technology and saw a glass half-empty.

But perhaps that 8-6 vote hides a silver lining. Generations change and a nation's thinking can change with it. We now see a new Filipino with no fear of publishing the most intimate detail of his life. Perhaps his fear of the government is still there but technology's sword, he can brandish like a wu shu master.

Let us see how the Supreme Court votes this time. Perhaps the ponencia would reveal a new phase of the Filipino in transition.