The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) plans to make the source code of Gov.PH publicly available, allowing Filipino developers to review and propose improvements to the official national government portal. The move would open the website’s development to contributors outside the government.
Through its eGov team, DICT will work with BetterGov.PH and Filipino open-source contributors on the portal. Announced at the BetterGov.PH Summit 2026, the collaboration would bring developers, designers, accessibility specialists, writers, translators, and researchers into efforts to improve how people reach government online.
“The idea is to let the IT community participate in building better government systems and platforms,” said DICT Undersecretary David Almirol Jr.
Almirol announced that the Gov.PH code repository would be opened on GitHub, a platform where developers store code and work together on software. An IT community group chat is also planned to support participation.
Source code is the set of instructions behind a website or application. Making it available for public review would let outside contributors examine how the portal is built and suggest changes to its design and functions.
BetterGov.PH convenor Jason Torres outlined plans for a unified design system and community-contributed translations into Philippine languages, alongside a commitment to open-source development.
A unified design system provides shared rules and reusable parts for building web pages. This can give a portal a more consistent layout, helping visitors find their way around. Philippine-language translations could also help people understand government information in a language they use daily.
The planned collaboration would give volunteers a role in shaping the government’s online entry point, while the government would remain responsible for the services behind it.
The announcement came as Philippine Civic Tech Week, held Oct. 12-18, brought together government agencies, civil society groups, developers, and researchers to work on public-service tools.
BetterGov.PH is a volunteer-driven civic technology and open-source movement that makes Philippine government data more accessible, understandable, and actionable. Founded in 2025, it says its community has grown to more than 5,000 members, with over 500 contributors working on more than 50 projects.
Its existing tools include a Budget Portal for examining national spending proposals and Bisto Proyekto, which lets citizens search infrastructure projects and report their condition. These projects provide background for its planned work with DICT on Gov.PH.
For the portal, the next step announced is opening the GitHub repository, giving prospective contributors access to the code they would help review and improve.