President Marcos has agreed that blockchain technology could help prevent corruption in the use of public funds, but acknowledged that even rule-bound systems have been undermined by officials in the past.

In an interview with Manila Bulletin’s “The Sit Down,” Marcos said while blockchain "is something that could work" against corruption, he emphasized that the root of all these anomalies, particularly the flood control corruption, was that rules were bent and dismissed by officials.

"I haven't seen any AI that's specifically geared towards that. Blockchain is something that could work," he said when asked if he was seeing blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) as among the solutions to create transparency on public funds spending.

"However, what has happened has been that we have violated the rules. Those rules exist, and simply we don't... In the last decade, they stopped following the rules," Marcos pointed out.

He has once again brought up the "acceptance rule" which he claimed was discarded by the past administration, removing one of the key safeguards in ensuring that infrastructure projects were built at par with the project plan and standards.

"For example, when I was in local government, when national government came in and was going to do a construction, they come in. They do the project. And then at some point, they come back to the local government executives and say, tapos na, natapos namin yung project (it is done, we have completed the project)," he said.

In the past, he said, the local executive would initiate an inspection to check the quality of the project before the local government signs the acceptance.

"Dapat pag hindi ko pinirmahan yung acceptance nung local government, hindi mababayaran yung contractor. Tatawagin yung contractor, tingnan mo ulit, hindi tama itong ginawa ninyo, ayusin mo. Pagka naayos n'yo yun, pipirmahan ko ito, mababayaran kayo. Yun ang sistema noon (If I didn’t sign the acceptance from the local government, the contractor would not get paid. The contractor would be called and told, 'look at this again — what you did isn’t right, fix it.' Once they fixed it, I’d sign it, and they’d get paid. That was the system back then)," he explained.

"Apparently in the last administration, they removed that entirely and I didn't...I was shocked because this is the standard procedure, you don't think about this anymore," the President said.

The Sit Down is an in-depth interview video podcast that brings audiences closer to the most influential voices in the country and beyond. Episodes can be accessed via The Manila Bulletin's YouTube and Spotify channels.