THE GOVERNMENT needs to tap artificial intelligence (AI) to better detect corruption and waste in public procurement, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said.
“Tools like AI-powered whistleblower reporting systems and blockchain-enabled reporting systems… can ensure reliability of information, protection of the citizen-whistleblowers, and (help ensure successful) forensics,” PIDS Senior Research Fellow Adoracion M. Navarro said during the 2025 Development Policy Research Month (DPRM) National Kickoff Press Conference on Monday.
Ms. Navarro said on the sidelines of the event that the government can leverage AI in government procurement via the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) to detect “bid rigging or weakening of competition.”
Ms. Navarro cited the case of Brazil, which uses AI-driven anti-corruption technology in auditing government transactions.
However, government data is currently not centralized, making it difficult to feed data to the AI, PIDS Senior Research Fellow Kris Francisco-Abrigo said.
“Remember that AI is a computer software that analyzes patterns, and at the moment, our data in government is not centralized. Digitalization is not widely adapted,” Ms. Abrigo told the forum. “I think that is something that we can work on if we want to use AI to combat corruption.”
Krystal Lyn T. Uy, former undersecretary for Legal Affairs at Department of Economy, Planning, and Development, said the government cannot take advantage of AI without data.
“Even AI systems are prone to biases, depending on the type of data that you feed into it,” she said. “If the only data that you have is Metro Manila data, then the results of the AI application would be biased towards Metro Manila.”
Emmanuel C. Lallana, professorial fellow at the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies, said the government must adopt a data governance framework to harness AI tools effectively.
“There has to be a shift in the mindset that the government doesn’t own the data. They’re just taking care of the data, and that we have to adopt an attitude of proactively releasing it,” he told the forum. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz
