The ABC of fighting corruption: How AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity can rebuild trust in government

Corruption remains the Philippines’ most persistent and corrosive challenge. It diverts resources from schools, hospitals, and roads; undermines investor confidence; and erodes the public’s trust in government. Year after year, scandals erupt — from ghost projects to padded bids and unexplained fund transfers — reminding us that the fight against corruption cannot be won by laws and committees alone. In a world shaped by technology, we need a new arsenal: Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity — the ABC of Digital Governance.

These three technologies, when working together, can make corruption not just punishable, but impossible.

AI: THE ALGORITHM THAT NEVER SLEEPS
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can detect what human oversight often misses. With massive amounts of data generated daily across hundreds of government agencies — procurement records, contracts, payrolls, and budget disbursements — AI can identify suspicious patterns that would take auditors months or years to find.

AI can automatically flag duplicate suppliers, colluding bidders, or projects with unusual cost deviations. It can cross-reference procurement data with company ownership records, tax filings, and social networks to identify conflict of interest or shell companies. Imagine a system that alerts the Commission on Audit (CoA) in real time when a bid is awarded to a contractor with a record of incomplete projects or pending violations. That is not the future — it’s a technological possibility today.

Other nations are already showing what is possible. Albania recently made history by appointing the world’s first AI-powered Procurement Minister — a digital system that evaluates tenders, monitors contracts, and flags irregularities automatically, free from human bias or influence. It represents a bold step toward algorithmic governance, where technology ensures consistency and fairness in public spending. If a small European country can entrust procurement oversight to AI, why can’t we at least begin integrating AI analytics into the Philippine procurement process?

Beyond detection, AI also enables predictive governance. By studying historical data from previous infrastructure or social programs, AI can predict which project types, regions, or agencies are most at risk of corruption. This allows government and oversight bodies to focus their resources where vulnerabilities are highest — preventing irregularities before they occur.

BLOCKCHAIN: ZERO TRUST, TOTAL TRANSPARENCY
If AI detects corruption, blockchain prevents it.

Blockchain technology is built on the principle of Zero Trust — the idea that no one should be trusted by default, and every action must be verified. This principle is exactly what our governance systems need. After decades of scandals, why should we rely solely on personal integrity when we can build systems where integrity is guaranteed by design?

Blockchain creates a permanent, tamper-proof ledger of transactions. Once data is recorded, it cannot be altered without consensus. If government procurement, bidding, and fund releases were conducted on blockchain, every step — from tender posting to payment disbursement — would be visible, verifiable, and irreversible. There would be no room for “fixers” or hidden intermediaries.

In Colombia, blockchain was piloted to make all public contracts transparent to citizens. Georgia digitized its entire land registry on blockchain, eliminating bribery and reducing title disputes to near zero. South Korea and India are experimenting with blockchain to ensure transparency in social services and subsidies. The World Food Programme uses blockchain to deliver financial aid directly to refugees, bypassing intermediaries, and ensuring every transaction is traceable.

The implications for the Philippines are transformative. If the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had conducted its flood-control project bidding on blockchain, the allegations of collusion and ghost projects could have been eliminated at the source. Each bid would have been immutably recorded, visible to auditors, regulators, and the public. Every peso released would have had a verifiable trail to contractors, making ghost projects virtually impossible.

Fortunately, we are no longer starting from scratch. The Philippines has already begun building its own blockchain-based governance model through the Integrity Chain — a private sector-led pilot initiative that brings together civil society, industry associations, and government agencies to create a transparent blockchain platform for public infrastructure projects. The Integrity Chain aims to make every budget transaction traceable, every contractor accountable, and every peso visible from release to completion.

This is a national first. If Integrity Chain can be successfully implemented in DPWH projects, it can serve as a model for all other government agencies — from the Department of Education to the Department of Health. It would be our country’s first “Zero Trust Governance Framework,” where technology — not personalities — guarantees honesty.

CYBERSECURITY: PROTECTING THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF TRUST
But transparency without protection is vulnerability. As government platforms become digital, they also become targets. Ransomware attacks, insider manipulation, and data breaches can erase years of progress overnight. We’ve seen this firsthand: the 2023 PhilHealth ransomware incident, the Comelec data leak, and attacks on LGUs all revealed how fragile our systems still are.

That is why cybersecurity must be treated as national security. It is the foundation that protects the data, systems, and trust that AI and blockchain depend on.

Government must adopt a Zero Trust cybersecurity architecture — one that continuously verifies access, encrypts data end-to-end, and uses AI-driven threat detection to identify breaches in real time. Regular security audits, ethical hacking simulations, and the establishment of dedicated cyber response teams in every department must become standard practice.

Equally critical is workforce development. Our cybersecurity talent pool must grow fast. The launch of the Cybersecurity Council of the Philippines, a collaboration among government, academe, and private sector leaders, is a timely step toward creating national awareness and resilience. But it must be followed by deeper investments in cyber training, local security technologies, and stronger coordination between agencies and the private sector.

FROM TECHNOLOGY TO TRUST
AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity — the ABC of Digital Governance — represent more than just modern tools. Together, they form a cycle of digital integrity: AI detects, blockchain secures, and cybersecurity protects.

AI ensures accountability through insight and prediction. Blockchain ensures transparency through immutability. Cybersecurity ensures confidence through protection. Implemented together, they create a government system where corruption has no dark corners left to hide.

The fight against corruption is not only a moral battle — it is an economic one. The World Economic Forum estimates that corruption drains up to 5% of global GDP each year. For the Philippines, that translates to hundreds of billions of pesos lost — money that could have built classrooms, hospitals, and flood control systems. Digital transformation is not just about efficiency or convenience — it is about reclaiming those lost billions through systems that are trustworthy by design.

The Integrity Chain pilot is a start. The next step is scale. Every major agency handling large budgets or public procurement should join the network. The private sector, too, must support it by ensuring that their contractors, suppliers, and auditors are blockchain-verified and cyber-protected.

We now have the tools to move from promises to proof. The challenge is no longer about technology — it is about leadership. Will we use AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity to clean up our systems, or will we let corruption continue to be written in the margins of our national budget?

The choice before us is clear: trust individuals — or trust systems. The Philippines has tried the first approach for decades, and the results are written in scandal after scandal. It’s time to try the second.

With AI as our analyst, blockchain as our ledger, and cybersecurity as our shield, we can finally build a government that doesn’t just demand trust — it earns it.

Dr. Donald Patrick Lim is the founding president of the Global AI Council Philippines and the Blockchain Council of the Philippines, and the founding chair of the Cybersecurity Council, whose mission is to advocate the right use of emerging technologies to propel business organizations forward.  He is currently the president and COO of DITO CME Holdings Corp.