President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has signed Executive Order No. 126, establishing the Centralized Open Monitoring Platform for Appropriations and Spending Statistics as a mandatory, government-wide spending tracking system.
The directive transforms the Department of Budget and Management platform, known as COMPASS, into an institutionalized framework covering all national government agencies, government-owned or -controlled corporations, and government financial institutions. Covered agencies are required to regularly publish and update spending data across the entire budget cycle, with non-compliance subject to administrative and disciplinary sanctions under existing laws.
Under the executive order, COMPASS will serve as a central repository tracking public funds from initial budget allocations and releases to procurement, project implementation and final completion. The platform will integrate data from existing systems, including the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System, the Budget and Treasury Management System, the Integrated Financial Management Information System, Digital Information for Monitoring and Evaluation, and the E-Gov PH App.
“Kung nais nating mapanumbalik ang tiwala ng taumbayan, dapat malinaw, bukas, at nakikita ang ating mga ginagawa,” Marcos said during the platform’s initial launch. “Hindi sapat na tama at kumpleto lang tayo sa papel. Kailangan nararamdaman din ang badyet ng taumbayan.”
To enforce compliance and set disclosure standards, EO 126 creates the COMPASS Council, chaired by the budget department and co-chaired by the Department of Information and Communications Technology. The Department of Finance and the Department of the Interior and Local Government will serve as council members.
The policy also mandates exception logs for information withheld under national security or privacy laws, requiring agencies to publish the legal justification, approving authority and date for any redacted records.
The executive action aligns with parallel legislative efforts to codify public financial transparency. Sen. Bam Aquino has authored the proposed Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability Act, known as the CADENA Act, which seeks to establish a statutory digital framework for real-time public tracking of government expenditures and procurement data. (Read More: Bam Aquino Urges House to Pass CADENA Act as Blockchain Budget Bill Stalls in Congress)
This article is published on BitPinas: Ahead of Blockchain Cadena Act? Marcos Signs EO 126 Mandating DBM COMPASS Portal to Track Government Spending End-to-End
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