Philippine Senator Bam Aquino has revealed plans to file a bill that would place the country’s national budget on blockchain, in a move aimed at boosting government transparency and accountability. Speaking at the Manila Tech Summit 2025, Aquino highlighted how technology can transform governance and specifically pointed to blockchain-based budgeting as a way to ensure that citizens can track how every peso is spent.

Aquino said he intends to file the proposal within weeks, emphasizing that blockchain could make the government’s financial records immutable, transparent, and accessible to the public. “By using blockchain for our budget, we can ensure people know where every peso goes,” Aquino explained in a Facebook post following the event.

The Philippines has already been experimenting with blockchain applications. In July, the government launched a blockchain-powered document validation system on Polygon, signaling its growing commitment to digital innovation. The initiative follows efforts by the Blockchain Council of the Philippines, which partnered with the Department of Information and Communications Technology in 2023 to accelerate nationwide blockchain adoption. The group’s founder, Donald Lim, even suggested the Philippines could become the “blockchain capital of Asia.”

Globally, governments are increasingly turning to blockchain to secure and modernize public records. In the US, the Department of Commerce announced plans to publish economic statistics, including GDP data, onchain. Other examples include a New Jersey county digitizing property deeds worth $240 billion, New York exploring blockchain for election security, and India storing decades of land records on Avalanche. Vietnam recently unveiled its own national blockchain platform to verify transactions and records across multiple sectors.

If Aquino’s proposal succeeds, the Philippines could become one of the first nations to adopt blockchain for national budgeting, setting a precedent in digital governance.