The Philippine president on Monday encouraged the public to express their outrage over massive corruption that has plagued flood-control projects in one of Asia’s most typhoon-prone countries but said street protests should be peaceful. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr Vowed that an investigation by an independent commission would not spare even his allies in the House of Representatives and the Senate, where several legislators have been identified and accused in televised congressional hearings of pocketing huge kickbacks, along with Government engineers and construction companies.
Marcos first spoke about the corruption scandal in July in his annual state of the nation speech. Unlike recent violent protests in Nepal and Indonesia, street rallies against alleged abuses in the Philippines have been smaller and relatively peaceful. Outrage has largely been vented online, including by Catholic church leaders, business executives and retired generals. A planned protest on September 21 in a pro-democracy shrine in the Manila metropolis near guarded upscale neighbourhoods, where some of the corruption suspects live in affluence, is expected to draw a larger crowd. Police forces and troops have been placed on alert.
“If I wasn’t president, I might be out in the streets with them,” Marcos said of anti-corruption protesters. “Of course they are enraged, of course they are angry, I’m angry,” Marcos added, calling on the protesters to demand accountability. “You let them know your sentiments, you let them know how they hurt you, how they stole from you, shout at them and do everything, demonstrate, just keep it peaceful.”
But Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said over the weekend that “people who have ill intentions and want to destabilise the Government] should not exploit the public’s outrage. Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr And military chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr Issued a joint statement late Friday rejecting a call for the country’s armed forces to withdraw support from Marcos in response to public outrage over the corruption scandal.