Thousands of Filipinos filled the streets of Manila on Sunday to protest the government, which they accuse of misappropriating billions of dollars that were designated for flood relief projects.
The protest’s organizers called for the demonstrations after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. revealed in July, during his 2025 State of the Nation address, that a number of flood-control projects he had previously announced as complete had been riddled with anomalies. Greenpeace, an environmental group, later estimated that about a trillion Philippine pesos, or $17.6 billion, that was supposed to help the country confront chronic and deadly flooding had been embezzled.
To address the issue, Mr. Marcos created an independent commission to probe the flood-control projects, and a Senate committee is conducting its own investigation. Both the Senate president and the House speaker have already been replaced as part of the fallout from the scandal, which follows years of infrastructure issues that have worsened as climate change exacerbates flooding.
Mr. Marcos has sought to align himself with the protesters. “Of course, they are angry,” he said last week. “I’m angry. We should all be angry. Because what’s happening is not right.”
The demonstrations came amid a wave of discontentment in parts of South and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, thousands of protesters turned out daily for more than a week at the end of August, calling for the nation’s lawmakers to reduce lavish spending at a time of economic hardship. And in Nepal, deadly protests this month against a social media ban and economic inequality ended with the government’s collapse and much of the capital going up in flames.
Organizers in Manila called for peaceful protests, but some instances of violence broke out. A group of mostly young men hurled stones, burned trailers and clashed with police officers in riot gear. Some were arrested, but the police did not immediately confirm how many.
The demonstrations, which also sprung up in other Filipino cities, may prove to be one of the biggest public backlashes against Mr. Marcos since he was elected in 2022. The main protests in Manila converged on two historic sites: Rizal Park, where the national hero José Rizal was executed at the end of the 19th century, and EDSA highway, where Filipinos toppled the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the current president’s father, in 1986.
The protests began before dawn on Sunday with a 10-kilometer solidarity run through Manila. “It’s important for us to speak out against corruption because as runners we are impacted by substandard public spaces — damaged roads, unlighted streets, poorly planned spaces,” said Nica Dumlao, a protester who participated in the run. “We want to be able to run safely in the city.”
At a 6:30 a.m. Mass, Father Julio Ramon Mallonga read a statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines urging people to join the protests. “This is a big scandal because most people here are starving while those sitting in government are completely depleting the people’s money,” he said. “There’s no flood control because there’s no control over greed.”
Some protesters used the demonstration to lampoon so-called nepo babies — children of contractors and officials linked to the flood-control scandal — with creative placards mocking their lavish lifestyles. One of the placards read: “Their luxury, our misery.” Some social media accounts that appeared to belong to the family members of officials had flaunted designer bags, private jets and other displays of wealth.
Marivic Sison and Melanie Lago, both 68, participated in the protests with their families. They came to continue the fight they began in the 1980s under the Marcos dictatorship. They described their frustration at watching similar signs of corruption resurface decade after decade. But the large number of young people turning out to protest gave them hope, they said.
“We are sick and tired,” Ms. Lago said. Ms. Sison added, “We have not lost faith in our country, and we just have to bring out what we feel.”
For both women, the rally represented an act of resistance and hope. While Ms. Lago admitted it was “so frustrating that we never learned our lessons,” Ms. Sison said that was precisely why people needed to show up.
In his 2024 State of the Nation address, Mr. Marcos said the government had completed more than 5,000 flood control projects to address the worsening issue. Weeks later, monsoon rains flooded Manila, forcing residents to wade through waist-deep water. Inspections found that many projects to protect against flooding had not been carried out or were poorly executed.
The timing of Sunday’s protests was significant. They fell on the 53rd anniversary of Marcos Sr.’s proclamation of martial law, which ushered in a dictatorship that killed thousands of people and plundered billions of dollars before he was overthrown.
The last time Filipinos rallied on a large scale was in 2013, when anger over congressional insertions widely known as ‘pork barrel’ — kickbacks funneled to lawmakers or officials by contractors who win government projects — spilled into the streets. The practice was outlawed by the Supreme Court after the protests, but few prosecutions followed, and some of those implicated later returned to office.
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