Sep 28, 20183 min read

PSA vs NSO Birth Certificate, What's New? How to apply online?

Updated: Mar 13, 2019

So my sister needs a copy of NSO now PSA Birth Certificate as one of the requirements for voter's registration. She's turning 18 this November and she's qualified to register even tho its only September (like 50 more days before 18!) as long as she'll be of legal age by the time of election voting.

Getting to the point of curiosity... why change NSO to PSA?? Any difference? As quoted from dfa.gov.ph :

"Republic Act No. 10625 (Philippine Statistical Act of 2013) was signed into law by President Benigno S. Aquino III on 12 September 2013. The law’s Implementing Rules and Regulations took effect on 29 December 2013.

It merged the National Statistics Office (NSO), National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) and the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) into the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

PSA shall serve as the central statistical authority of the Philippine Government. It shall also administer the civil registration functions provided under Act No. 3753 (Law on Registry of Civil Status).

All civil registry documents (i.e. birth certificate/ROB, marriage certificate/ROM, death certificate/ROD, CENOMAR) are now issued by the PSA. However, until the full merger of the abovementioned agencies, these certifications may still be obtained from the NSO."

To sum it up, PSA is the merge of four statistics offices (NSO, NSCB, BLES, & BAS) and now serve as the central statistical authority of the Philippine Government.

(I didn't even know there were four statistics offices, I only knew NSO! lol my bad) So I search how to order PSA birth certificate online and I found this site nsohelpline.ph/order-now. It seems legit tho. You can choose out of four documents you'd like to order (Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, Death Certificate, and CENOMAR or Certificate of Singleness). So I placed an order for my sister's birth certificate and fill in the required information (make sure all information were valid and correct). I entered my mom's name as the person to receive the document. Then I paid thru gcash. The total amount was ₱365.00 including the documentary stamp tax. There are two payment channels to choose from either Online or Over-the-counter. For Online, you have via gcash or mastercard/visa. For Over-the-counter, you can pay thru Metrobank, Security Bank, BancNet, Bayad Center or 7Eleven ECpay. Once you're paid, you will receive a confirmation. I received mine thru text message since its gcash.

You can always check the status of your order in the site itself nsohelpline.com/check-status. I ordered Sept. 19, 5:15pm and it was delivered on Sept. 25, 10am via 2GO Express. Its almost the same as the NSO copy except with the PSA logo.

What made me confused is the billed amount on the receipt that was attached to the document which stated a total of ₱155.00! But then I paid ₱365.00 online! The nsohelpline.ph should have detailed the spending why the total was charged at ₱365.00 not just to avoid confusion but also for transparency. The shipping cost & some hidden charges I guess were worth more than the document itself... quite disappointing.

Anyway going back last April 22 of this year 2018, I applied for passport at SM Megamall and they still accept NSO Birth Certificates. But then to ease your mind and avoid wasting unnecessary time and effort I definitely suggest to get the PSA Authenticated Birth Certificate. Its better to be sure than waiting into long queue but getting rejected because you brought the old NSO copy instead of the PSA one.

For detailed step-by-step process with screenshots, check out this link:

https://blogtrove.wixsite.com/sisidlan/blog/step-by-step-process-online-psa-application-with-screenshots