Philippine AI Governance: Time to Shift Gears

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been on the Philippine government’s radar for several years now. In 2021, the Department of Trade and Industry issued the first edition of the National AI Strategy Roadmap (NAISR), which outlined the government’s vision for developing the Philippine AI industry through digital infrastructure, workforce skills training, research and development, and effective regulation. The second edition of NAISR, drafted in 2024, builds on these four domains and takes stock of more recent trends enabled by generative AI.

While significant attention has been paid to enabling AI development in the Philippines, a significant regulatory gap remains in ensuring the responsible development and application of AI in the country. For example, while there are currently at least six AI-focused bills in the House of Representatives, all of them are still pending approval at the committee level.

One of these proposals, House Bill 7913, seeks to establish an “AI Bill of Rights” that includes the right against algorithmic discrimination, right to privacy, and right to remedy (or opt out) from AI systems. However, with only a few weeks left before the May 2025 midterm elections, it is unlikely that any of these bills will be enacted before the adjournment of the current 19th Congress. Hence, they will need to be re-filed once Congress resumes its session in July.

The foundation for a regulatory framework could also be laid through executive action and agency-issued blueprints. Some of the Philippines’ ASEAN neighbours, notably Singapore, have taken this approach. It is through this route that government agencies have tried to curb the use of deepfakes as a tool for disinformation operations.

In the run-up to the midterm polls, the Philippine Commission on Elections issued guidelines on digital campaigning that banned the production of deepfake content for disinformation purposes. For its part, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) announced that it was formulating a similar directive. However, without enabling legislation or executive action, the agency-driven approach could lead to overlapping mandates and a convoluted regulatory landscape, which could further frustrate stakeholders.

It is also clear that AI-generated disinformation is not the only risk that needs to be regulated through public policy. A truly comprehensive regulatory framework should recognise the various risks and disruptions associated with AI applications and aim to manage them as effectively as possible.

The lack of clearly defined governance not only risks undercutting the country’s growth potential but could also turn foreign investments away from the Philippines in favour of other countries that are also positioning themselves as global AI ‘hubs’.

For example, following allegations earlier this year that DeepSeek’s AI chatbot routinely asserts China’s “indisputable sovereignty” over the West Philippine Sea and other disputed features in the South China Sea, defence analysts flagged the potential risks to Philippine national security interests arising from foreign-developed AI models. This concern also speaks to the broader challenge of ensuring that AI models are culturally sensitive to countries in the Global South.

AI adoption also threatens to produce negative downstream effects in the jobs market. Current estimates already show that AI could shave up to 300,000 jobs off the country’s business process outsourcing sector, or roughly 15 per cent of the total jobs in the industry. Without the proper guardrails to ensure that AI does not displace the workforce but rather augments it, these disruptions could leave a greater impact than currently estimated — not only in terms of the number of jobs lost but also the quality of AI jobs on offer, with Filipinos being relegated to performing the mechanical aspects of training AI systems, for instance.

Furthermore, as NAISR 1.0 correctly points out, regulatory uncertainty can hinder the growth of the local AI industry. In the 2023–2028 Philippine Development Plan, the government cited AI development and automation as a growth engine for the digital economy, which accounted for 8.4 per cent of GDP in 2023. The lack of clearly defined governance not only risks undercutting this growth potential but could also turn foreign investments away from the Philippines in favour of other countries that are also positioning themselves as global AI “hubs” but with clearer and more comprehensive regulatory frameworks.

The slow pace of instituting AI governance frameworks is indicative of a wider challenge in enacting digital policies in the Philippines. Proposed legislation such as the Konektadong Pinoy (Connected Filipino) bill, which aims to lower the costs of Internet services, and the e-Governance bill, have taken nearly the entire sitting of the 19th Congress for approval despite being tagged as priority laws by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as soon as he took office in June 2022.

The lack of staff, particularly those with technical expertise, reduces agencies’ ability to implement new laws, potentially leaving harmful AI practices in place with impunity. The ongoing leadership revamp at DICT is an opportunity to ensure readiness to implement new regulations.

The Marcos administration needs to act more decisively and quickly in AI governance than it did in the first half of its term, considering the wide scope of policy domains that must be addressed, including labour disruptions, data governance, copyright infringement, and environmental impacts. However, while regulation is necessary, it is not a silver bullet to fix the country’s AI lag. Raising public awareness of AI’s risks and opportunities, investing sufficiently in R&D, and developing a local expert pool are equally important in building a thriving AI industry.

While Philippine AI governance is currently stuck in neutral, it is not too late to shift gears towards a more robust policy.

2025/131