Sen. Bam Aquino is pushing the CADENA Act to make government spending more transparent, giving Filipinos a way to track how public money is used as communities continue to bear the effects of corruption in flood-control projects.
The Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability Act would establish a publicly accessible digital record of government contracts, project costs, procurement documents and other spending data through blockchain technology.
Aquino said greater transparency would equip the public with a more effective tool to fight corruption.
“(No to) resiliency, (yes to) transparency,” Aquino said.
The proposal comes as the government investigates a massive flood-control scandal that has put billions of pesos in public funds under scrutiny. The Ombudsman has filed a plunder complaint and other criminal charges against former House Speaker Martin Romualdez for unlawfully accumulating about ₱56 billion in ill-gotten wealth from 2022 to 2025 through the diversion and misuse of public funds.
Ombudsman Boying Remulla has described the case as the “grandest case” in the flood-control scandal and identified Romualdez as an mastermind of the scheme.
Aquino’s measure seeks to address the lack of transparency that can allow questionable government spending to evade public scrutiny. Under CADENA, contracts, procurement documents, project costs, appropriations and other government transactions would be made available through a public system.
The CADENA Act has cleared the Senate on third and final reading with a 17-0 vote but remains pending before the House of Representatives.
