PANews reported on October 16th that, according to Decrypt, the Philippine Senate is considering Senate Bill 1330, which proposes using blockchain to track the national budget, with an initial allocation of approximately $8.6 million. The proposal stems from anti-corruption calls following the flagging of approximately $9.2 billion in public projects by President Marcos. Former Attorney General Florin Hilbay and attorney Geronimo Law noted that the proposal's centralized nature and private contracting could lead to centralized data control, making corrections and challenges difficult, and potentially reducing transparency to a technological illusion. The Philippine Fintech Lawyers Association recommends that the government retain ownership and control of data, with only private sector technology services provided, and adopt open source and data portability to avoid vendor lock-in.