Philippine senator to propose putting national budget on blockchain

Philippine Senator Bam Aquino has announced plans to propose a bill that would store the country’s national budget on a blockchain to improve transparency and accountability in government spending.

Senator Aquino intends to file the bill in the coming weeks, according to a Facebook post by local news outlet BusinessWorld. The bill aims to integrate the government’s budget and transactions into a blockchain platform, providing real-time access to detailed financial information and ensuring full accountability for every peso spent.

In a separate Facebook post, Aquino explained that the initiative stems from his discussions at the Manila Tech Summit 2025, where he spoke about leveraging blockchain technology to enhance accountability in governance. “By using blockchain for our budget, we can ensure people know where every peso goes,” he emphasized.

Philippines’ growing adoption of blockchain

This proposed bill is part of the Philippines’ broader effort to embrace blockchain technology for government applications. In July 2025, the Philippine government launched a blockchain-based document validation system on the Polygon network, despite a brief outage on the same day.

The Blockchain Council of the Philippines (BCP), in partnership with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, has been a key driver of this push. In a 2023 interview, BCP founder Donald Lim expressed confidence that the Philippines could become Asia’s blockchain capital.

Global trend of blockchain adoption in government

The Philippines is not alone in exploring blockchain for government functions. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently announced that the Department of Commerce will begin publishing economic data, including gross domestic product (GDP), on blockchain platforms.

Other countries are also advancing blockchain adoption. For example, a New Jersey county tokenized $240 billion worth of property deeds, while New York Assembly members proposed using blockchain to protect voter records. Similarly, India has implemented a system to store land records on the Avalanche blockchain, and Vietnam launched a national blockchain platform to verify digital transactions across sectors.