Protesters destroy an effigy of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during a rally against corruption in Manila, Philippines, Sunday, November 30, 2025.
Aaron Favila/AP
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Aaron Favila/AP
MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of protesters, including members of the Roman Catholic Church clergy, protested in the Philippines on Sunday calling for the immediate prosecution of senior lawmakers and officials implicated in a corruption scandal that has battered Asian democracy.
Left-wing groups led a separate protest in Manila's main park, strongly demanding that all government officials involved immediately resign and face justice.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is struggling to quell public outrage over widespread corruption blamed for shoddy, defective or non-existent flood control projects in the archipelago long plagued by deadly floods and extreme weather in tropical Asia.
More than 17,000 police officers were deployed to provide security for isolated protests in metropolitan Manila. Manila's Malacañang presidential palace complex was locked down by security, with key access roads and bridges blocked by riot police, trucks and barbed wire railings.
In the deeply divided democracy, where two presidents have been ousted in the past 39 years, partly over looting allegations, there have been isolated calls for the military to end its support for the Marcos administration.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines categorically reject such calls and welcomed on Sunday a statement signed by at least 88 mostly retired generals, including three chiefs of staff, who said they “strongly condemn and reject any calls for the Armed Forces of the Philippines to engage in unconstitutional activities or military adventurism.”
“The united voice of our retired and serving leaders affirms that the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains a bastion of stability and a staunch guardian of democracy,” the military said in a statement.
Roman Catholic churches across the country helped lead Sunday's anti-corruption protests in their districts, with the main daylong rally taking place at the pro-democracy “people power” monument along the EDSA Highway in the capital region. Police said about 5,000 demonstrators, mostly dressed in white, joined them before noon.
Protesters shout slogans during an anti-corruption protest in Manila, Philippines, Sunday, November 30, 2025.
Aaron Favila/AP
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They demanded that members of Congress, officials and construction company owners behind thousands of anomalous flood control projects in recent years be jailed and the government funds they stole returned. The protester wore a shirt with the blunt message: “No mercy for the greedy.”
“If money is stolen, it is a crime, but if dignity and lives are stolen, it is a sin against other people, against the country, but most importantly against God,” said the Rev. Flavy Villanueva, a Catholic priest who has helped many of the families of impoverished drug suspects killed in former President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdown.
“Put all the corrupt people and all the murderers in jail,” Villanueva told a crowd of protesters.
Since Marcos first raised the alarm about flood control anomalies in his State of the Union address in July, at least seven public works officers have been jailed for misuse of public funds and other bribery charges in just one anomalous flood control project. Executives from Sunwest Corp., a construction firm involved in the project, are being sought.
On Friday, Henry Alcantara, a former government engineer who admitted under oath at a Senate investigative hearing to his involvement in the anomalies, returned 110 million pesos ($1.9 million) in kickbacks that justice officials say he stole and promised to return even more in a few weeks.
Authorities have frozen about 12 billion pesos ($206 million) in assets of the flood control suspects, Marcos said.
Marcos has vowed that many of the at least 37 powerful senators, members of Congress and wealthy construction executives implicated in the corruption scandal will be in jail by Christmas.
Protesters at Sunday's rallies said many more officials, including the senators and House members involved, should be jailed sooner and ordered to repay funds they stole and used to finance fleets of private jets and luxury cars, mansions and extravagant lifestyles.
AP journalists Joel Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
