Marcos institutionalizes DBM public funds tracker

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. signed the General Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2026 during a ceremony at Malacañan Palace on Monday, Jan. 5.

Noel B. Pabalate / PPA Pool

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) platform, where the public can monitor and track government funds has been made permanent and embedded into government systems.

This comes after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order No. 126 on Tuesday, September 28, to institutionalize DBM’s Centralized Open Monitoring Platform for Appropriations and Spending Statistics (COMPASS).

The digital platform COMPASS, launched in late June this year, allows the public to track the movement of government funds from approval to release, obligations incurred, and actual disbursements.

The information can also be filtered by agency, department, purpose, fiscal year and other categories.

“There is a need to institutionalize the COMPASS portal to enhance public access to information on government budget, procurement, and fund utilization through a unified digital platform,” the executive order read.

COMPASS Council

The order directed all government agencies, government-owned and controlled corporations, and state financial institutions to publish and disclose information that may be required by the DBM on the COMPASS Portal.

Local government units, meanwhile, were encouraged to do the same.

For its implementation, the COMPASS Council, composed of the DBM as the chairperson, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) as the co-chairperson, and the Department of Finance and Department of the Interior and Local Government as members, will be established.

The COMPASS portal will be embedded in existing government digital systems such as the Budget and Treasury Management System, Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System, Digital Information for Monitoring and Evaluation and E-Gov App.