The short version

On 28 September 2026, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order (EO) No. 126, institutionalizing the Department of Budget and Management's (DBM) Centralized Open Monitoring Platform for Appropriations and Spending Statistics, or COMPASS, as the government's "unified and publicly accessible digital platform" for budget, expenditure, procurement and related transparency information. The DBM announced it on 30 September under the headline "'FOLLOW EVERY PESO'."

COMPASS is not new: the DBM launched it on 26 June 2026 as a searchable portal for spending by department, agency, funding source and fiscal year. What is new is the legal footing. Below, we separate what the sources say (Facts) from what we think follows (Interpretation).

FACTS: What EO 126 says

Who must disclose. Per the DBM, concerned national government agencies and instrumentalities, including government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs), must submit, disclose, update and publish required information through COMPASS. Each agency is responsible for the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of what it submits, and failure to comply "may be grounds for administrative and disciplinary sanctions" under existing laws.

What is covered. Financial and program performance, project implementation and completion status, procurement information and other transparency-related data across the national budget cycle. Public-private partnerships and foreign-assisted programs may be covered if they use, disburse or account for public funds.

Technology and standards. The portal "may utilize distributed ledger technology, including but not limited to blockchain or other emerging technologies," as quoted by the Inquirer and BusinessMirror. It must interface with the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS), Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS), Digital Information for Monitoring and Evaluation (DIME) and the E-Gov PH App, plus systems the DBM identifies. Required standards: data integrity, authenticity, interoperability, accessibility, traceability, auditability, cybersecurity and operational resilience.

Governance. A COMPASS Council is chaired by the DBM and co-chaired by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), with the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) as members. It sets disclosure policies, standards and timelines, monitors compliance and recommends action on non-compliance. It may engage Congress, the Judiciary, constitutional commissions, local government units (LGUs), civil society, academe and media. PTV reports it must issue implementing guidelines within 60 days.

Local governments. The DBM says LGUs are "encouraged to participate." The DILG is directed to urge LGUs to use COMPASS and, "where applicable," to include disclosure of covered information as a criterion for the Seal of Good Local Governance.

Safeguards. Information protected by national defense, national security or data privacy laws is not covered. Withheld or redacted information requires a published exception or redaction log giving the legal basis, approving authority and date.

Statements. At the June launch, Marcos said: "Like a compass that points the way forward, this platform allows our people to see and track where their hard-earned money goes." The DBM release also quotes him in Filipino: "Kung nais nating mapanumbalik ang tiwala ng taumbayan, dapat malinaw, bukas, at nakikita ang ating mga ginagawa. Hindi sapat na tama at kumpleto lang tayo sa papel. Kailangan nararamdaman din ang badyet ng taumbayan." (smartcity.ph translation: "If we want to restore the people's trust, what we do must be clear, open and visible. It is not enough that we are correct and complete on paper. The people's budget must also be felt.")

At the 29 September ceremonial signing of a Data Sharing Agreement between the Procurement Service-DBM (PS-DBM) and the Office of the Ombudsman, DBM Acting Secretary Kim Robert C. De Leon said: "The President has already signed an Executive Order also institutionalizing the DBM COMPASS. So, very soon, we will be sharing the DBM COMPASS as well to the Office of the Ombudsman so that you will not just only track procurement, but you can even see SAROs, NCAs, NTA releases, and LGSF releases at your fingertips." He added: "COMPASS will be the central repository where you can get the complete story—from appropriation, allotment, procurement, and project implementation status."

That agreement gives authorized Ombudsman personnel "role-based and read-only" access to PhilGEPS records, per a separate DBM release. It is oversight access, not public disclosure, and De Leon's COMPASS-sharing remark is a stated intention, not a signed arrangement.

Timing. Media reports say the order was published on the Official Gazette website on 29 September and takes effect 15 days after publication, or 14 October.

INTERPRETATION: smartcity.ph's view

This section is our analysis, not a government claim.

From dashboard to duty. An order that makes each agency answerable for its own submissions, with sanctions, moves the burden to where data is produced. That is the harder reform.

The lifecycle join is the real test. De Leon's "complete story" from appropriation to project status means connecting budget releases, procurement and implementation monitoring, which have long sat in separate systems. Naming IFMIS, BTMS, PhilGEPS and DIME makes that an explicit goal. Whether it works depends on shared identifiers and data quality, which the order, as reported, does not detail.

Timelines will decide credibility. The Council sets them, and monthly versus near-real-time reporting makes very different tools.

The exception log is quietly important. Requiring a legal basis, approver and date for every withholding makes redaction auditable, and can separate legitimate confidentiality from convenience.

Blockchain is an option, not a promise. The order says "may," and ASTIG notes it "does not commit to a specific rollout."

What this means for LGUs, vendors and civic-tech builders

LGUs. Participation is encouraged, not mandated, per the DBM and GMA News. (PTV's summary describes COMPASS as encompassing LGUs; we rely on the more specific DBM wording.) The practical hook is the Seal of Good Local Governance: if the DILG adds COMPASS disclosure as a criterion, it would tie local data practice to a recognition many LGUs already pursue. Sensible steps now: ask your DILG field office about Seal changes (none are published), inventory where project, procurement and fund-release records live, and check that PhilGEPS filings match what you report elsewhere.

Vendors. Procurement is explicitly in scope and PhilGEPS is a named interface, so supplier, award and contract records may increasingly be read next to fund releases and project status. Consistent entity names and registrations are cheap preparation, since the Ombudsman agreement covers beneficial ownership and participation history in PhilGEPS.

Civic-tech builders. COMPASS already publishes API documentation. As of 3 October 2026, the page describes key-based access with dataset scopes: budget-cascade records (appropriations, allotments, obligations, disbursements), Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) records, Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) records and Local Government Support Fund (LGSF) records filterable by region, province and city or municipality. It does not say who can get a key, or on what terms or license, and it lists no procurement or project-status endpoints.

What is not yet known:

  • LGU coverage: whether "encouraged" hardens into a requirement, and what any Seal criterion looks like.
  • Enforcement: how sanctions apply and who applies them; the order points to existing laws.
  • Timelines: the disclosure schedule is for the Council, with guidelines expected within 60 days.
  • Open data: the DBM release speaks of an "open public financial data framework," but we found no statement on bulk downloads, licensing or public API access.
  • Procurement and project data: whether and when the "very soon" sharing and a fuller implementation view go live.
  • Data quality: no baseline or audit of agency submissions has been announced.

Source notes

Primary and official

News coverage