‘Enormous evil’: Thousands rally in the Philippines over corruption scandal

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Protests travel amid wide choler implicit billions of pesos spent connected substandard oregon non-existent flood power infrastructure.

Published On 16 Nov 2025

Tens of thousands of radical are gathering successful the Philippines’ capital, Manila, demanding accountability implicit a corruption scandal linked to flood-control projects and apical authorities officials, including allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The three-day rally, which begins connected Sunday, is the latest show of outrage implicit the find that thousands of flood defence projects crossed the typhoon-prone state were made from substandard materials oregon simply did not exist.

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Police estimated that 27,000 members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, oregon Church of Christ, gathered successful Manila’s Rizal Park earlier noon, galore wearing achromatic and carrying anticorruption placards, for the day demonstration.

Brother Edwin Zabala, spokesperson for the church, said the three-day rally is aimed astatine expressing “our sentiment and lend the dependable of the Iglesia ni Cristo to the calls of galore of our countrymen condemning the tremendous evil involving galore authorities officials”.

Other groups were scheduled to clasp a abstracted anticorruption protestation aboriginal connected Sunday astatine the People Power Monument successful suburban Quezon city.

The country’s subject reaffirmed enactment for the authorities earlier the planned demonstrations successful Manila, wherever the Philippine National Police accidental they volition deploy 15,000 constabulary arsenic security.

The protests travel allegations that galore well-connected figures, including Marcos’s relative and erstwhile House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez, pocketed ample sums for anti-flooding projects that were debased successful prime oregon ne'er completed astatine all.

Public outrage has flared again aft recent storms hammered ample swaths of the state earlier this period and near astatine slightest 259 radical dead, and Marcos has promised that those implicated successful the ungraded would beryllium successful jailhouse earlier the Christmas holiday.

The Department of Finance has estimated that the state mislaid up to 118.5 cardinal pesos ($2bn) to corruption successful flood-control projects betwixt 2023 and 2025, immoderate of them referred to arsenic “ghost infrastructure projects”.

A fact-finding committee has filed transgression complaints for corruption against 37 people, including senators, members of Congress, and affluent businesspeople. Criminal complaints person besides been filed against 86 operation institution executives and 9 authorities officials for allegedly evading astir 9 cardinal pesos ($153m) successful taxes.

Among those accused are lawmakers opposed to and allied with Marcos. In summation to Romualdez, these see Senate President Chiz Escudero, arsenic good arsenic Senator Bong Go, a cardinal state of erstwhile President Rodrigo Duterte.

All 3 person denied wrongdoing.

Marcos has said his relative volition not look transgression charges “as yet” owed to a deficiency of evidence, but added that “no 1 is exempt” from the investigation.

“We don’t record cases for optics,” helium said. “We record cases to enactment radical successful jail.”

Protesters with an effigy of the President of the Philippines

Duterte, a harsh Marcos critic, was detained by the International Criminal Court successful the Netherlands successful March for alleged crimes against humanity implicit his brutal anti-drug crackdowns.

His daughter, the existent vice president, said Marcos should besides beryllium held accountable and jailed for approving the 2025 nationalist budget, which appropriated billions for flood power projects.

There person been isolated calls, including by immoderate pro-Duterte supporters, for the subject to retreat enactment from Marcos, but Armed Forces of the Philippines main of staff, General Romeo Brawner Jr, has repeatedly rejected those calls.

“With afloat conviction, I guarantee the nationalist that the equipped forces volition not prosecute successful immoderate enactment that violates the Constitution. Not today, not time and surely not nether my watch,” Brawner said.

The subject “remains steadfast successful preserving peace, supporting lawful civic look and protecting the stableness and antiauthoritarian institutions of the republic”, helium added.

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