Philippines rolls out more initiatives to combat corruption

Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III unveiled Wednesday two projects aiming at combating corruption by making government transactions more transparent. Aquino said the Cashless Purchase Card (CPC) program and the Open Data Philippines online portal will "modernize" government procurement. "The Cashless Purchase Card program and Open Data Philippines are only the latest in a long list of reforms we have implemented towards instituting good governance," he said in a speech at the opening of the three-day Good Governance Summit in Manila. Aquino said the CPC program enables government agencies to make financial transactions entirely through electronic means instead of cash or checks. It will initially be implemented at the Department of Budget and Management, Department of National Defense, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the first quarter of this year. Aquino said he hopes the CPC program will be expanded to other national agencies by 2015. Through the CPC and other similar reforms, he said government financial transactions should "be 100 percent checkless and 80 percent cashless before the end of this year." Aquino also announced the launch of the Open Data Philippines website which features the latest national government data accessible to the public.