NEWS | Senator Bam Aquino led the Senate Finance Subcommittee's review of DOST's proposed 30.9 billion peso budget for 2027 on September 16. During the hearing, he pushed the government to develop its own Filipino made AI model, warning that continued reliance on foreign systems like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini could end up shaping how Filipinos think, speak, and see their own culture.
DOST Secretary Renato Solidum presented the agency's spending plans for science, technology, research, and innovation programs for next year. Aquino also pushed DOST to use its budget to help bring down the cost of everyday essentials like food, medicine, and energy, tying the agency's research work directly to something regular Filipinos actually feel in their wallets.
BMN sees the AI sovereignty point as the more interesting story buried in a routine budget hearing. Aquino is arguing that depending entirely on AI models built somewhere else is not just a tech gap, it is a cultural one, since these systems shape language, tone, and perspective in ways most users never really think about.
That concern is easy to raise in a hearing and much harder to actually fund. Building an AI model that can compete with the billions already poured into ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini would take serious, sustained investment, not just one senator's comment during a budget review.
If the Philippines wants an AI that actually reflects Filipino culture instead of borrowing someone else's, is a single line in a budget hearing enough to make that happen, or does it need its own dedicated push?
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