The Weekly Headline: The Philippines Just Wrote Its First AI Rulebook for Government — and It’s Stricter Than You’d Expect

On June 9, 2026, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) issued Joint Memorandum Circular No. 003, Series of 2026 — the country’s first principles-based framework for how artificial intelligence can be developed, deployed, and used across the Philippine public sector. It took a few weeks for the legal and policy world to catch up, but by mid-July, law firms and industry groups were calling it a genuine turning point.

What the circular actually does

The JMC sets out governance, accountability, and data protection requirements for every government agency using AI — from a chatbot on a city hall website to predictive models used in social services. Crucially, it doesn’t stop at government doors. Agencies are now expected to hold their private-sector AI vendors to the same standard, which means any company selling AI tools to a Philippine government office needs to start reading fine print it may never have looked at before.

Part of a bigger push

This isn’t happening in isolation. Days later, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) directed regions outside Metro Manila — including Central Visayas — to draft their own AI roadmaps, backed by the National AI Center for Research and Innovation’s computing resources. The goal is explicit: keep AI adoption from concentrating entirely in the capital. Add to that the Marcos administration’s push for the “Pax Silica” initiative, a proposed AI and semiconductor hub in Clark backed by US investment, and a pattern emerges — 2026 is the year the Philippines stopped treating AI governance as an afterthought and started building the scaffolding first.

Why this matters beyond government offices

Framework documents like the JMC rarely make headlines, but they set the tone for everything downstream: how startups pitch AI products to agencies, how citizens can expect their data to be handled, and how quickly “ethical AI” moves from a slide in a deck to an actual compliance checklist. Advocates who’ve spent years pushing for exactly this kind of structure — including local voices in the Data and AI Ethics PH community — have long argued that governance frameworks need to exist before AI scales, not after something goes wrong.

That’s also the space Dominic “Doc” Ligot has worked in for years. As founder of Data and AI Ethics PH and Director for AI Ethics and Data Governance at the Philippine AI Business Association, Doc has spent much of the past few years arguing for exactly the kind of principles-based, accountability-first framework the DICT and CSC just published. He’s also the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars digging into what frameworks like this actually mean for businesses and everyday Filipinos navigating the AI shift — details at aitalks.younifest.com.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

A joint memorandum circular won’t trend on social media. But it’s exactly the kind of unglamorous groundwork that determines whether AI adoption in the Philippines happens responsibly or recklessly. Worth watching: whether local government units actually have the technical capacity to enforce it, and whether private vendors adjust before someone forces them to.

Further Reading:

• Philippines Launches Responsible AI Governance Framework — Baker McKenzie
• DOST urges regions to craft AI roadmaps — The Freeman
• Malacañang backs Pax Silica initiative — Manila Times

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI