The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) wants the 2026 budget placed on the blockchain to serve as a prototype for a working legislation of such a policy.
Information Secretary Henry Aguda had asked President Marcos to place on the blockchain what would become the General Appropriations Act (GAA) 2026 in line with efforts to raise spending transparency.
Aguda said the DICT backs the passage of Senate Bill (SB) 1330, filed by Sen. Bam Aquino, seeking to record contracts, payables and transactions covered by the GAA on the blockchain.
However, Aguda said SB 1330 would take time before it is passed into law, acknowledging that the measure may even face opposition in legislation. With this, he proposes that the 2026 budget be placed on the blockchain to show that the policy works.
‘Before the law comes out, we can put the 2026 budget on the blockchain. We can treat it as our sandbox, as our prototype, so that while the law is being legislated, we can learn from it,’ Aguda said.
In his own capacity as secretary, Aguda said he has recommended to the President to certify SB 1330 as a priority legislation in response to corruption scandals on flood control projects.
In October, Aguda served as a resource person for the legislative hearing on SB 1330 wherein he outlined how the blockchain can be maximized by the government as a budget tracker.
Aguda views the blockchain as a channel where all transactions are recorded permanently, giving Filipinos the tool to scrutinize every peso spent by their policymakers.
But not everyone is a fan of the government’s push to put all transactions on the blockchain, such as GCash head of crypto Luis Buenaventura. Recently, he recalled how blockchain failed to prevent large-scale scams on cryptocurrencies Mt. Gox in 2014 and FTX in 2022.
Moreover, Buenaventura said the blockchain would only be effective as a budget monitor if it is decentralized. He also warned that the government may not be prepared to shift to the blockchain if its computers are exploding, referring to the alleged cause of the recent fire at an office of the Department of Public Works and Highways.
SB 1330 aims to set up a blockchain-based budget system where all records related to the GAA would be recorded as a digital public asset.
The measure also proposes to place government contracts on the blockchain, so contractors have to upload proof of verifiable milestones for their projects before they are paid.