Thousands in Philippines protest corruption, demand return of stolen funds

Authors: The Associated Press

Publisher:

NPR

Published: 12/1/2025

Language:English

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Elon

Good morning matteocapuzzi, I'm Elon, and this is Goose Pod for you. Today is Monday, December 08th.

Taylor

And I'm Taylor. We are here to discuss the thousands in the Philippines protesting corruption and demanding the return of stolen funds.

Elon

This is a system under siege. Thousands of people on the streets, over 17,000 police deployed, and the presidential palace in lockdown. The scale of the public reaction is a significant data point. It’s a direct challenge to the status quo.

Taylor

It's such a powerful narrative. People are not just holding signs; they're destroying effigies of the president. That’s a visceral, symbolic act of defiance. It tells a story of deep-seated anger that goes beyond simple policy disagreements.

Elon

Symbolism is one thing, but results are what matter. A former engineer returned 1.9 million dollars in kickbacks. It’s a tiny fraction of the 206 million dollars in assets authorities have frozen, but it’s a tangible admission of guilt.

Taylor

Exactly, it’s the first domino to fall. And look at the coalition that’s formed: the Roman Catholic church clergy and left-wing groups protesting together. When you see alliances like that, you know the narrative has reached a critical mass.

Elon

The catalyst is the fraud in flood control projects. Money was allocated for projects that were substandard or, in some cases, never even existed. This isn't just waste; it's a criminally inefficient system that endangers lives for profit.

Taylor

And that’s what makes this story so heartbreaking and infuriating. The corruption isn’t abstract; it has real-world consequences. People are losing their homes and their lives to floods because officials allegedly wanted to fund extravagant lifestyles. It’s a tragic tale of greed.

Elon

President Marcos has promised that at least 37 senators, congress members, and executives will be in jail by Christmas. That's an aggressive, almost impossible timeline. He's trying to get ahead of the problem, but promises are easy to make. Execution is the hard part.

Taylor

It's a bold strategic move. By setting a public deadline, he's turning his promise into a major plot point for the entire country. Now everyone is watching the clock. It’s a high-stakes gamble that will define his presidency.

Elon

This isn't a new bug in the system; it's a feature. The Philippines ranks 114th out of 180 on the Corruption Perceptions Index. The entire framework is flawed, a legacy system built on centuries of graft, cronyism, and inefficiency. It needs a complete overhaul.

Taylor

It’s a story woven into the very fabric of the nation. It goes back to the Spanish colonial period and runs right through the Marcos family, who are accused of stealing an estimated 10 to 30 billion dollars. It’s a recurring motif of kleptocracy.

Elon

Thirty billion dollars. The sheer magnitude of that figure is hard to comprehend. Think of the innovation, the infrastructure, the progress that could have been funded. Instead, you get "ghost projects"—421 flood control projects that existed only on paper. It's pure fiction.

Taylor

And that’s the most audacious part of the story. It’s not just about skimming a little off the top; it’s about inventing reality. This is why the old "pork barrel" system, even though officially gone, persists. Legislators are still inserting their own pet projects into the budget.

Elon

The "pabaon scandal" was another perfect data point. Military generals allegedly receiving millions as a retirement bonus. It's corruption institutionalized as a perk of the job. You can't fix that with small, incremental changes. You have to disrupt the entire culture.

Taylor

Right, but the public's side of the story has evolved. There used to be a kind of cynical tolerance. But the Marcos dictatorship was a turning point. The sheer shamelessness of their extravagance created such a stark contrast with the people's suffering.

Elon

That extravagance was a critical error. It made the corruption tangible. People can ignore numbers in a report, but they can't ignore thousands of pairs of shoes or fleets of luxury cars. It provided physical evidence of the system's failure.

Taylor

It became the central symbol in a story of massive popular indignation, which led to the People Power movement that ousted him. That event reshaped the country's narrative, proving that the people could, in fact, change the ending.

Elon

And yet, the cycle continues. After Marcos Senior, you had presidents like Estrada and Arroyo, both mired in their own plunder charges. The issue is systemic. The underlying code is fundamentally broken and needs to be rewritten from scratch.

Taylor

That's the core conflict in this ongoing national drama. Every new leader promises a "straight path," but the old plot lines and characters keep re-emerging. The ultimate challenge is to finally break that narrative cycle for good.

Elon

The conflict now is a simple equation: accountability versus impunity. The protesters are not asking for reforms; they are demanding consequences. Their message is blunt: "Jail all the corrupt." It's a direct, unambiguous challenge to the entire political establishment.

Taylor

And it's fascinating to watch the establishment respond. President Marcos, the son of the dictator his people overthrew, is now promising a crackdown. It's an incredible narrative arc. He's tasked with cleaning up a system his own family is infamous for perfecting.

Elon

The military's position is a key variable. In a country with a history of military intervention, their statement rejecting "unconstitutional acts" is huge. They are publicly locking themselves in as supporters of the current system, removing a major lever of disruption.

Taylor

It’s a brilliant strategic play. By branding themselves as the "steadfast guardian of democracy," they’re controlling their own story. They are effectively telling the protestors that any change must happen within the system, not by overthrowing it. The rules of engagement are set.

Elon

Which forces the conflict into political and legal channels. But if the judicial system itself is perceived as corrupt, how can it be the solution? You can't use a compromised tool to fix the machine. It’s a fundamental paradox.

Taylor

That's where the church steps in. By framing this as a moral battle, a fight against sin, they elevate the conflict beyond politics. It becomes a struggle for the soul of the nation, which is a much more powerful and motivating story.

Elon

Morality is hard to measure. What we can measure is the 12 billion pesos in frozen assets. The government is using its financial power as leverage. The conflict isn't just on the streets; it's being fought on bank statements and in boardrooms.

Elon

The economic impact is the most direct consequence. The country's own Finance Secretary admitted that growth could have been faster. Corruption is a drag coefficient on national progress. It is an inefficient allocation of capital, plain and simple.

Taylor

It's a story of what could have been. Every stolen peso represents a missed opportunity—a school that wasn't built, a patient who wasn't treated. It fundamentally erodes public trust, which is the essential currency of any functioning economy.

Elon

It also repels investment. Capital flows away from instability and risk. A scandal of this magnitude is a giant red flag for international investors. It's a self-inflicted wound that damages their ability to compete on a global scale.

Taylor

And it feeds into a broader, regional story about inequality. The public sees the children of politicians flaunting wealth from these projects while they suffer the consequences, like deadly floods. It makes the injustice personal and impossible to ignore.

Elon

The system's fragility is on full display. When funds for critical infrastructure are diverted, the state fails its most basic duty: to protect its citizens. The ultimate impact is a catastrophic loss of confidence in the institutions themselves.

Taylor

And once that trust is gone, it's incredibly difficult to win back. That's why experts are saying that reforms have to be more than just good rhetoric. You can't just tell people a new story; you have to show them one.

Elon

The entire future hinges on this promise to jail the corrupt by the end of the year. It's a binary outcome. Either Marcos Jr. delivers a major blow to the system, or his credibility completely evaporates. The stakes are absolute.

Taylor

It's the ultimate test of his presidency's narrative. Is he the reformer who finally breaks the cycle, or just another character in the same tragic story? The article even asks if he could be toppled by a public uprising, just like his father.

Elon

The odds are against a complete system overhaul. The entrenched interests are too powerful. The government will likely increase spending to appease the public, but without fixing the fundamental leaks, it's just pouring more resources into a broken machine.

Taylor

He's walking a tightrope. He has to show progress without completely alienating the powerful figures who are part of the problem. The future of political stability in the Philippines really hangs in the balance of this single, epic conflict.

Elon

So that's the situation. A nation at a crossroads, demanding accountability for decades of systemic theft. The outcome is uncertain.

Taylor

That's the end of today's discussion. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod, matteocapuzzi. See you tomorrow.

Thousands in the Philippines protest rampant corruption, demanding stolen funds' return. The episode details systemic graft, from flood control fraud to kleptocracy, and the visceral public anger. President Marcos faces pressure to deliver on promises of jailing officials, with the nation's future and trust hanging in the balance.

Read original at NPR →

Protesters destroy an effigy of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during an anti-corruption rally in Manila, Philippines on, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. Aaron Favila/AP hide caption toggle caption Aaron Favila/AP MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of demonstrators including from the Roman Catholic church clergy protested in the Philippines on Sunday, calling for the swift prosecution of top legislators and officials implicated in a corruption scandal that has buffeted the Asian democracy.

Left-wing groups led a separate protest in Manila's main park with a blunt demand for all implicated government officials to immediately resign and face prosecution. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been scrambling to quell public outrage over the massive corruption blamed for substandard, defective or non-existent flood control projects across an archipelago long prone to deadly flooding and extreme weather in tropical Asia.

More than 17,000 police officers were deployed in metropolitan Manila to secure the separate protests. The Malacanang presidential palace complex in Manila was in a security lockdown with key access roads and bridges blocked by anti-riot police forces, trucks and barbed wire railings. In a deeply divided democracy where two presidents have been separately overthrown in the last 39 years partly over allegations of plunder, there have been isolated calls for the military to withdraw support from the Marcos administration.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines has steadfastly rejected such calls and welcomed on Sunday a statement signed by at least 88 mostly retired generals, including three military chiefs of staff, who said they "strongly condemn and reject any call for the Armed Forces of the Philippines to engage in unconstitutional acts or military adventurism."

"The unified voice of our retired and active leaders reaffirms that the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains a pillar of stability and a steadfast 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 being held at a pro-democracy "people power" monument along EDSA highway in the capital region.

Police said about 5,000 demonstrators mostly wearing white joined before noon. Protesters shout slogans during anti-corruption protest in Manila, Philippines on Sunday Nov. 30, 2025. Aaron Favila/AP hide caption toggle caption Aaron Favila/AP They demanded that members of Congress, officials and construction company owners behind thousands of anomalous flood control projects in recent years be imprisoned and ordered to return the government funds they stole.

A protester wore a shirt with a blunt message: "No mercy for the greedy." "If money is stolen, that's a crime, but if dignity and lives are taken away, these are sins against fellow human beings, against the country but, most importantly, against God," said the Rev. Flavie Villanueva, a Catholic priest, who has helped many families of impoverished drug suspects killed under former President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdowns.

"Jail all the corrupt and jail all the killers," Villanueva told the crowd of protesters. Since Marcos first raised alarm over the flood control anomalies in his state of the nation address before Congress in July, at least seven public works officers have been jailed for illegal use of public funds and other graft charges in one flood control project anomaly alone.

Executives of Sunwest Corp., a construction firm involved in the project, were being sought. On Friday, Henry Alcantara, a former government engineer who has acknowledged under oath in Senate inquiry hearings his involvement in the anomalies, returned 110 million pesos ($1.9 million) in kickbacks that justice officials said he stole and promised to return more in a few weeks.

About 12 billion pesos ($206 million) worth of assets of suspects in flood control anomalies have been frozen by authorities, Marcos said. Marcos has pledged that many of at least 37 powerful senators, members of Congress and wealthy construction executives implicated in the corruption scandal would be in jail by Christmas.

Protesters in Sunday's rallies said many more officials, including implicated senators and House of Representatives members, should be jailed sooner and ordered to return the funds they stole and used to finance fleets of private jets and luxury cars, mansions and extravagant lifestyles. AP journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report

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