What it is
The CADENA Act would require every national government agency to publish its budget records, from the first budget call to the last audit finding, on one public portal that nobody can quietly edit. CADENA stands for Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability; the word also means "chain" in Filipino, a nod to the blockchain the portal is meant to run on.
It began life as Senator Bam Aquino's "Blockchain the Budget" bill and was renamed CADENA in late 2025, as the flood control scandal pushed budget transparency to the top of the national agenda. The idea is simple to state: if every appropriation, release, contract and payment is posted within days, in a format anyone can search and download, then a citizen can follow a peso from the line item that created it to the contractor who received it.
Following one peso
Every record carries the same linkage ID, so a line item can be traced to the contractor it paid.
- 1AppropriationGAA line itemCongress
- 2AllotmentSARODBM
- 3CashNCADBM
- 4ObligationObligation requestAgency
- 5BiddingBid notice, abstract of bidsProcuring entity
- 6AwardNotice of award, contractProcuring entity
- 7PaymentDisbursement voucherAgency, Treasury
- 8AuditCOA reportCOA
One ID from step 1 to step 8, posted within 7 working days at each step.
What "blockchain" means here
A blockchain is a record kept in many copies at once, where every new entry is sealed with a fingerprint of the entry before it. The fingerprint, called a hash, is a short code worked out from the entry's contents: change a single figure and the code comes out different. Because each entry carries the fingerprint of the one before, altering an old entry breaks the link to everything after it, and every copy can see the break.
Nothing is erased. A correction is a new entry that points back to the one it corrects, so the original stays visible beside it.
How the chain holds
Each record carries the fingerprint of the one before it.
- Release orderSARO for road worksprevious—fingerprint4b1a
- ContractAwarded to the winning bidderprevious4b1afingerprint7c2e
- PaymentFirst progress billingprevious7c2efingerprint9d05
For a budget portal, that brings three things:
- Records that cannot be quietly changed. Once a release order or a contract is posted, editing it afterwards shows up as a broken link, not a silent fix.
- A history anyone can read. A reader sees what was first posted, what was corrected, and when, because corrections are added rather than written over.
- Copies outside one office. Accredited mirrors run by universities, media and civil society can check, entry by entry, that they hold the same record as the government.
What it cannot do is make a record true. A blockchain proves an entry has not changed since it was posted; it says nothing about whether it was right when it was posted. A padded contract posted on time is still padded. That is why the bill pairs the portal with posting deadlines, penalties for false entries, and the Commission on Audit.
How it got here
The Senate passed it 17 to 0 on 15 December 2025. The House has not passed it ten months later.
Where the bill stands
Passed by one chamber, held in a House committee since May.
- DoneRenamed CADENA in Senate hearingsNov 2025
- DoneSenate passes SB 1506, 17–015 Dec 2025
- DoneHouse bills filed, HB 7712 and HB 6898Feb 2026
- Stuck hereHouse Appropriations committeeMay 2026
- Still to comeHouse third reading—
- Still to comeSigned into law—
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 5 Oct 2026 | A coalition of civic and tech groups, including BetterGov.PH, formally asks the Speaker, the Majority Floor Leader and the Appropriations and ICT chairs to act (Gadget Pilipinas) |
| Sep 2026 | President Marcos signs Executive Order No. 126, making the DBM's spending monitoring platform the government's unified budget portal and authorising it to use blockchain. Transparency groups welcome it but say an order can be withdrawn by the next administration; only a statute binds |
| Aug 2026 | CADENA is dropped from the shortened list of priority bills. Economic Planning Secretary Balisacan says it stays on the longer LEDAC agenda; Aquino calls the delay "very bothersome" |
| 9 May 2026 | The consolidated House version is referred to the Committee on Appropriations, where it still sits. The ICT committee had merged 30 related bills into one substitute measure |
| 10 Feb 2026 | Rep. Ferdinand Alexander Marcos files House Bill 7712, adopting the Senate text; Rep. De Lima files a parallel HB 6898 |
| 15 Dec 2025 | Senate approves Senate Bill 1506 on third reading, 17–0, as a presidential priority bill |
| Nov 2025 | "Blockchain the Budget" is renamed the CADENA Act at Senate committee hearings |
So the bill is written, passed by one chamber, endorsed by the President, and stuck in a House committee. That is where things stand today.
What it would put online
Section 5 of the bill lists the documents, stage by stage, and names the office responsible for each. The accountable officer has seven working days from the document's approval or issuance to post it. Corrections are versioned, so the earlier entry stays visible.
| Stage of the budget | What gets published | Who posts it |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation | Budget call, every agency's budget proposal forms, the NEP, the BESF, the President's budget message | DBM, line agencies |
| Legislation | Every version of the appropriations bill, committee reports, each amendment with its proponent named, the bicameral report, the veto message, the GAA | House, Senate, DBM |
| Execution | Agency budget execution documents, SAROs, NCAs, fund release receipts, registries of allotments and disbursements, disbursement vouchers | DBM, Treasury, agencies |
| Procurement | Program of works, bill of quantities, unit price analysis, bid notices, evaluations, abstracts of bids, beneficial ownership disclosures, notices of award, contracts, progress billings, inspection reports, completion certificates | Head of the procuring entity |
| Accountability | Financial statements, COA audit reports and observation memoranda, agency action plans, oversight hearing records | COA, agencies, Congress |
Each record must carry a linkage identifier so that an appropriation can be traced to its final payee. Public expenditure, contract and supplier information is expressly declared not personal data, so the Data Privacy Act cannot be used to delay disclosure.
The penalties have teeth. Missing the seven-day deadline is an administrative offence: reprimand or up to six months' suspension on the first, dismissal and perpetual disqualification on the second. Failing to post for thirty working days without cause, posting false data to fake compliance, or destroying a document that should have been posted is a crime carrying six to fifteen years in prison and a fine of up to three million pesos.
The clock on each record
Working days after a document is approved or issued.
A National Budget Transparency and Accountability Council, co-chaired by the DICT and DBM secretaries, would run the system, with COA, DOJ and DOF as members and four citizen seats for civil society, academe, media and the tech sector. Rollout is phased: agency websites within nine months, the five biggest spenders on the portal within two years, everyone within three.
Who it covers, and where the Bangsamoro falls
As written, the CADENA Act does not reach the Bangsamoro Government's own spending. Section 4 covers national departments, bureaus, agencies and instrumentalities, GOCCs and their subsidiaries, plus PPP and foreign-assisted projects that pass through national mechanisms. Local government units are expressly excluded; they are only "encouraged to adopt similar mechanisms."
The Bangsamoro Government is named nowhere in the text. It is neither a national agency nor an LGU under the Local Government Code; it is an autonomous regional government with its own parliament, its own appropriations law and its own procurement. That leaves it in a gap the drafters did not address.
In practice, CADENA would show the national side of the Bangsamoro's money and stop at the regional border. A reader could see the DBM's release of the annual block grant and the Special Development Fund, the SAROs and NCAs that carry them, and national agency projects in the region such as DPWH and DepEd works. They would not see how the Bangsamoro Government then appropriates that money through the Bangsamoro Appropriations Act, how ministries obligate it, or who wins Bangsamoro contracts. Those records stay where they are today: scattered across ministry pages, PhilGEPS postings and COA reports.
What CADENA reaches
The trail runs to the regional border, then stops.
| Preparation | Legislation | Execution | Procurement | Accountability | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National agenciesDPWH, DepEd and the rest, including their projects in the region | Covered | Covered | Covered | Covered | Covered |
| Block grant to the regionReleased by the DBM; the release is national | Covered | Covered | Release only | Not covered | Not covered |
| Bangsamoro ministriesAppropriated by the BAA, spent by the ministries | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered |
| Provinces, cities, townsOnly “encouraged” to adopt something similar | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered | Not covered |
This is the author's reading of the bill text; the IRR or a House amendment could change it.
Can the Bangsamoro adopt the same?
Yes, and a bill to do it is already before the Parliament (see the next section). Nothing stops the Bangsamoro Parliament from enacting a regional CADENA, and in one respect it could go further than the national bill.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law gives the Parliament legislative power over the region's own budgeting and administrative organisation, and gives the Bangsamoro Government supervision over its constituent provinces, cities and municipalities. A disclosure law is squarely within that. The Parliament already legislates the Bangsamoro Appropriations Act every year and has passed its own Administrative Code and Local Governance Code; a transparency act that tells ministries and offices what to post, where, and by when is the same kind of law. The national bill itself anticipates this: Section 13 lets the DICT, DBM and DILG lend hosting, training and technical help to governments that voluntarily adopt CADENA or build something like it.
A Bangsamoro version would cover the records CADENA leaves out:
| Stage | Bangsamoro records a regional act could require | Who would post |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation | Ministry budget proposals, the Chief Minister's budget message, the proposed Bangsamoro Expenditure Program | MFBM, ministries |
| Legislation | Every version of the appropriations bill, committee reports, amendments with proponents, the enacted BAA | Parliament, Office of the Speaker |
| Execution | Allotment and cash releases to ministries and offices, obligations, disbursement vouchers, Special Development Fund and block grant utilisation | MFBM, ministries |
| Procurement | Program of works, bids, awards, contracts, progress billings and completion for every Bangsamoro procuring entity | Each ministry's head of procuring entity |
| Accountability | COA audit reports on the Bangsamoro Government, ministry action plans, Parliament oversight records | COA, ministries, Parliament |
The gap in the national bill is where the regional one could be stronger. CADENA excludes LGUs because Congress chose not to reach them. The Bangsamoro Government, which supervises its LGUs directly through the MILG, could bring provincial and municipal budgets and contracts under the same portal from the start, or phase them in the way the national bill phases in agencies.
Three things a Bangsamoro act could not change. COA remains the auditor; a regional law can require audit reports to be posted but cannot alter the audit. Procurement in the region still runs under the national procurement law and PhilGEPS; a regional act layers disclosure on top of those rules rather than replacing them. And the national block grant is released by the DBM, so the upstream release documents would live on the national portal, not the regional one. The two systems would need to link rather than duplicate, which is exactly what the interoperability clauses in CADENA are written for.
The harder question is political will, not legal power. The national bill moved only after a scandal made inaction costly.
The Bangsamoro's own bill: A-Chain
The Parliament already has one in front of it. Proposed Parliament Bill No. 427, the Amanah Chain Act or "A-Chain Act", would set up a blockchain ledger for the region's own money. Its author is MP Jaafar Apollo Mikhail L. Matalam; 7 MPs co-authored it on filing and 21 are listed now. The name comes from Amanah, which the bill describes as "the trust placed upon public officials to manage resources on behalf of the people."
Its explanatory note says it "is not a copy of any national proposal" and was written "for the political, cultural, and administrative realities of the Bangsamoro." Its stated aim is the same as CADENA's: to "track every peso from appropriation to audit."
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 21 Apr 2026 | Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, where it sits |
| 19 Jan 2026 | First reading |
| 9 Jan 2026 | Filed as Proposed Parliament Bill No. 427 |
What it would do
- One ledger for the region. A-Chain would record budget allocations, releases, procurement, project milestones and disbursements, as the official public ledger of BARMM (Sections 2 and 4).
- Ministries and local governments alike. Every ministry, office and agency, and every province, city, municipality and barangay, would have to connect its budget, release, disbursement, procurement, milestone and audit records (Section 5). That is the gap the national bill leaves open.
- Checked by more than the government. The ledger would be verified by "validator nodes": the Bangsamoro Treasury Office, COA-BARMM, and accredited universities and civil society groups (Section 3).
- Releases that follow the rules automatically. "Smart Amanah Contracts" would trigger a fund release or procurement step once set requirements are met (Section 3).
- A public portal. An A-Chain Transparency Portal would publish budget use, procurement information, project locations and citizen monitoring reports in real time (Sections 4 and 8).
- Who runs it. The Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management leads; the Bangsamoro ICT Office builds and maintains it; COA-BARMM uses it for audit trails (Sections 7 and 8).
- A pilot first. It would start in one infrastructure ministry, one social service ministry, one province, and one city or municipality (Section 9), paid for from the Bangsamoro Appropriations Act, the block grant and the Special Development Fund (Section 10).
Side by side
The national bill and the Bangsamoro’s own.
| CADENA · national | A-Chain · Bangsamoro | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose money | National agencies, GOCCs, national projects | Bangsamoro ministries, offices and agencies |
| Local governments | Left out; only encouraged | Provinces, cities, towns and barangays must join |
| Deadline to post | 7 working days | Not set; left to the rules |
| If a record is missing | Administrative, then criminal: 6–15 years | Administrative liability |
| Who checks the record | Accredited mirror sites | Validator nodes: Treasury, COA-BARMM, universities, civil society |
| Who runs it | A council co-chaired by DICT and DBM | MFBM leads; the Bangsamoro ICT Office builds it |
| How it starts | All agencies within 3 years | A pilot: 2 ministries, 1 province, 1 town |
| Where it stands | Passed the Senate; in a House committee | Filed Jan 2026; in Ways and Means |
What the text leaves to the rules. The bill is 13 sections long, and several things CADENA spells out are left to the implementing rules, due within 90 days of the Act taking effect. It sets no deadline for posting a record, lists record types rather than named documents, does not define what counts as "non-confidential", and makes a missed upload an administrative liability without a criminal penalty of its own. It does not say which requirements a Smart Amanah Contract would check. None of this is unusual for a bill at committee stage; it is where public comment and the committee hearings can add detail.
The Transition Authority sits until 30 October 2026, when the first elected Parliament takes office. Whether A-Chain moves is a choice its members get to make, and one the public can press them on.
What this means for BetterBARMM
BetterBARMM already does, by hand and after the fact, a small part of what a Bangsamoro CADENA would do by law and in real time. The Budget workspace holds the enacted appropriations acts from FY 2020 to FY 2026. The Legislation workspace tracks what the Parliament passes. The Procurement workspace gathers what Bangsamoro agencies post on PhilGEPS, with the honest caveat that the data may be incomplete because posting is uneven.
That caveat is the point. A portal built by a citizen can only show what the government has chosen to publish, in whatever format it chose. A disclosure law flips the default: the record is posted within seven days or someone is liable, and it arrives in a structured format that a site like this one can pull through an open API instead of scraping and retyping. CADENA even provides for accredited mirror sites run by universities, media and civil society, so that the official record does not sit on a single government server.
Until either Congress or the Parliament acts, this portal will keep doing the slower version. A-Chain is filed and waiting in committee; the records already gathered here are a fair preview of what it would put online, and of what it should require.
Sources
- House Bill 7712, full text, which adopts the Senate-approved CADENA Act; the sections cited above follow its numbering
- Senate passes PBBM-priority CADENA bill, Philippine News Agency, 15 December 2025
- Coalition presses House to act on the CADENA Act, Gadget Pilipinas, 5 October 2026
- Rep. De Lima files House bill adopting Senate's CADENA Act, BitPinas, updated 22 April 2026
- Bam Aquino: CADENA Act, or Blockchain the Budget, Senate press release, 4 November 2025
- Proposed Parliament Bill No. 427, the Amanah Chain (A-Chain) Act, full text; its record on the Parliament site, and on BetterBARMM Legislation
- Republic Act No. 11054, Bangsamoro Organic Law