Protests erupt over flood control fraud in Philippines

Thousands of Filipinos marched in Manila on Sunday to vent their anger over a ballooning scandal involving bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

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But a day of largely peaceful mass protests erupted into violence as riot police deployed water cannon in clashes with scores of mostly young masked people who hurled rocks and shattered the glass of one police outpost.

Police arrested 72 people -- including 20 minors -- in two separate incidents that saw at least 39 officers injured and a trailer that was being used as a barricade set ablaze, according to a spokeswoman.

Major Hazel Asilo said it was unclear if those arrested were “protesters or just people who are causing trouble.”

Rage over the so-called ghost infrastructure projects has been mounting in the Southeast Asian country since President Ferdinand Marcos put them centre stage in a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding.

Marcos said early last week he did not blame people for protesting “one bit.”

Sunday in the capital began without violence with a morning demonstration at a park that drew nearly 50,000 people, according to city estimates.

Thousands more joined an afternoon rally at the capital's EDSA thoroughfare, ground zero for the 1986 movement that ousted Marcos’s dictator father.