Civil Society Groups Used AI to Analyse the ₱7.2-Trillion 2027 Budget in a Day, Senate Says
Artificial intelligence and citizen-built digital tools are speeding up the Senate’s review of the proposed ₱7.2-trillion national budget for 2027, the Philippine News Agency reported on October 26. At a Committee on Finance hearing on Monday, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said civil society organisations had produced an analysis of the House-approved budget within a day using AI and computer coding, work that previously took one to two weeks and left senators less time to examine questionable allocations.
Gatchalian said the Senate has added links to independent analyses, including work by BetterGov.ph and the People’s Budget Coalition, to its Budget Transparency Portal so the public can examine spending proposals and congressional changes more easily. The portal also carries budget documents, committee schedules and hearing recordings, although the civil society analyses do not represent official Senate findings. He encouraged more groups to submit sector-specific reviews of education, health, transportation and infrastructure spending.
People’s Budget Coalition co-convenor Kenneth Abante launched a digital tracker that lets citizens examine infrastructure allocations by district, including projects added, cut or removed in the House version. It covers about 18,000 projects, among them nearly 7,000 House-added infrastructure items worth an estimated ₱190 billion that the coalition flagged for lacking publicly available supporting documents. Users can see which districts received the largest additions and compare them with the National Expenditure Program submitted by the executive. The coalition stressed that its findings remain subject to verification and do not automatically establish irregularities.
What it means in practice
The episode shows AI being used to scrutinise government rather than only to deliver its services. It complements official efforts such as the eGovAI assistant inside the eGovPH super app and Stratbase’s call to make AI use mandatory for good governance under the E-Gov Act. “Transparency is more felt when people can actually use the information to ask questions and hold their government accountable,” said Finance Committee chair Senator JV Ejercito. For newsrooms and watchdogs, a one-day turnaround means budget insertions can be questioned while hearings are still under way.
The test now is whether senators act on the flagged items before the budget is finalised, and whether the AI-assisted analyses hold up once the coalition’s findings are verified.