Public indignation against corruption sparks biggest Manila protest in years

THOUSANDS of Filipinos marched in the capital on Sunday in the biggest protest so far against the multibillion-peso flood control scandal, turning weeks of online outrage over corruption into mass street demonstrations that rattled the political establishment.

- By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio Reporter and Erika Mae P. Sinaking

About 49,000 people joined the anti-corruption rally at Luneta Park in Manila, the city’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office said in a Facebook post. Organizers of a separate rally at the EDSA People Power Monument in Quezon City said they expected about 30,000 to attend.

“It is probably the biggest protest in the last three years since Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. became President, and this is just the start,” Renato M. Reyes, Jr., president of the group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of the Manila protest. “Anger has been building up for quite some time, that’s why the wave of protests was unleashed.”

The rallies against massive corruption in flood control deals coincided with the 53^rd commemoration of the Martial Law declaration by the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. in 1972 that plunged the Southeast Asian nation into political and economic disarray.

His son and namesake now faces mounting pressure as his administration is rocked by an unfolding flood control scandal involving substandard, incomplete or nonexistent infrastructure in a country regularly battered by flooding.

“I hope the irony is not lost on the President,” Mr. Reyes said. “Here we are, 53 years after the declaration of martial law, yet corruption remains a major issue confronting Filipinos.”

Street protests in the Philippines largely faded during the pandemic and has smothered the attendance of public demonstrations a few years after strict lockdowns.

But the demonstrations against anomalous flood control deals may mark a shift in public engagement with corruption and governance issues, Ederson DT. Tapia, a political science professor at the University of Makati, said in a Facebook Messenger chat.