Blockchain the Budget Bill Won’t Solve Corruption

When I first studied the Blockchain the Budget Bill, I wanted to believe it could finally end corruption. But as someone who has spent years observing how local government systems actually work, I realized something deeper — technology, by itself, doesn’t solve corruption. It only exposes it.

Blockchain the Budget Bill: More Than Just a Ledger

The Blockchain the Budget Bill (SB 1330), endorsed by Senator Bam Aquino, is an important step forward for transparency. But blockchain, in its simplest form, is just a ledger — it records transactions, not intentions. If the data entered is dishonest, then corruption merely becomes digital.

That’s why I wrote a an incomplete position paper proposing deeper integrations: AI-powered procurement to remove human discretion, IoT-based delivery verification to prevent ghost projects, and encrypted blockchain ledgers even for confidential funds. True accountability isn’t achieved by recording corruption — it’s achieved by making it impossible to perform in the first place.

While public consultations for the Blockchain the Budget Bill are ongoing, and several prominent advocates and leaders — including Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong — have already expressed support, this article serves as an independent reflection and a call for wider civic dialogue. After all, transparency begins not in code, but in conversation.

Many government systems still rely on manual processes and post-event reporting. Even the Full Disclosure Policy, meant to promote transparency, often ends up showing only polished summaries. We don’t need more summaries — we need systems that code fairness, not just policies that assume it.

This incomplete position paper, written with the help of AI but entirely shaped by my own observations and principles, argues for a hybrid model of governance: blockchain for integrity, AI for validation, and IoT for proof of delivery.

Blockchain won’t solve corruption. But it can make corruption visible, traceable, and eventually obsolete — if we have the courage to design governance that no longer depends on who is honest, but on how honesty is built into the system itself.