The Philippines proposes a blockchain for the budget bill to advance accountability by recording all the government expenditure on the blockchain to reduce corruption.

The Blockchain Budget Bill, or Philippine Senate Bill 1330, is a proposed law that will increase transparency in the expenditure of government funds. The proposal aims to recreate the entire state budget on the blockchain, where citizens can monitor money in real time.

In case the Department of Budget and Management approves it, the system will be governed by the Department of Budget and Management, and every department will post healthcare expenses, education expenses, and so forth on blockchain. This would make financial statements immutable, inaccessible, and transparent to the populace, a long-held accounting and accountability problem.

Lawmakers think that blockchain can build a credible system that will ensure that every peso spent does not go to waste. The data on spending would be immediately accessible, and the audit (that would take months) could be reduced to a few days. It would also make the Philippines among the first countries in the world to implement blockchain on a national budget scale.

As much as it looks promising, challenges exist. Establishing secure blockchain infrastructures, teaching government employees, and setting up what the population is allowed to access will take serious planning. However, officials claim that the measure represents a move towards a desire to become digitally responsible and could act as a catalyst to implement similar changes on an international scale.

Adopting blockchain beyond cryptocurrency is an indication of a radical move towards open governance and technological development in the Philippines.