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From a skyscraper in downtown Manila, a sea of white spreads out below, covering the vast green lawns of Rizal Park and expanding down arterial roads and sidestreets. It is formed of more than half a million people, clad in matching white T-shirts, the slogan “transparency for a better democracy” emblazoned on their chests.
An estimated 650,000 of them have flooded the centre of Manila to protest, amid fury over a spiralling corruption scandal in which billions of dollars in flood mitigation funds have evaporated. Organised by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a powerful sect in the Philippines, the three-day rally has shut down schools, roads and offices. Many of those protesting have camped out all night on the park’s lawns, sleeping in tents or beneath tarpaulins and umbrellas. Families have journeyed from across the country to set up camp, some equipped with portable stoves and rice cookers, others pushing elderly family members in wheelchairs, many of them bearing placards saying “expose the deeds”.
“We are Filipino … that’s why we’re here. We have decided to unite as one people to try to make our government better, because there is so much corruption. Our money is being taken but the projects are never completed,” says Edward, 20, who has come from Batangas, a province about two hours away. “There are so many floods. And when the floods come, there are so many issues.”
The focus of the fury is on company owners, government officials and parliament members accused of pocketing billions in funds for substandard or nonexistent flood protection projects. Since the scandal began, the country’s economic planning minister has said up to 70% of public funds allotted for flood control may have been lost to corruption; some senators have estimated 50%. Government investigators have discovered more than 400 “ghost” flood protection projects that were reported to have been completed but turned out to be nonexistent.
The absence of those protections is felt keenly in the Philippines, where hundreds of people have died in typhoon-related flooding over the past month. More than 20 typhoons have hit the country’s territory this year, and extreme weather increasingly derails daily life. As the rally formed on Sunday, authorities and families were still searching for those missing from Typhoon Kalmaegi, which ripped through the country in early November, killing at least 269. The 100 or so still missing are likely to also have been killed. Days after Kalgaemi blew through, Typhoon Fung-wong arrived, causing more devastating floods, displacing 1.4 million people and killing another 28.
In Quezon City, thousands more people rallied at the People Power monument, in a protest led by progressive groups and retired generals. “Those in power no longer act in accordance with the welfare of the people and according to the wishes of the people,” Rey Valeros, the secretary general of the United People’s Initiative, the group behind the protest, told local media. “They no longer listen to the cries of the majority and they conduct their own investigations into what is happening. No one is punished and no one is held accountable.”
The president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has attempted to quell public outrage, saying this week that officials involved in the scandal would be arrested and charged by end of year. “They’ll be jailed – there’s no merry Christmas for them,” he said.
But the hundreds of thousands gathered in Rizal Park could spell trouble for Marcos. The rally has been organised and endorsed by the INC, a Philippine megachurch that commands a membership of close to 3 million. Many of those attending cite their obligations to the sect, as well as their concern over corruption, as a reason for attending. “Our leader announced a rally. It’s our nature as the church to unite in the activity that our leader establishes,” says Leonard, a student who has travelled with his family from southwestern Luzon to attend the protest.
The INC is highly authoritarian and its members vote in a bloc, giving them considerable electoral influence. The sect’s leadership has endorsed the winning presidents of the last five elections, including the 2022 victor, Marcos, and his running mate, Sara Duterte. In the years since their election, however, Marcos and Duterte have turned from allies to feuding political rivals, and the INC has thrown its weight behind the latter.
On Sunday the INC spokesperson Edwil Zabala said the sect was not looking to topple the government. “We are not fighting the government. It is not our aim to bring down the government as an institution,” he said, criticising what he called efforts to portray the rally as an attempt to destabilise the administration.
Addressing the crowds on Sunday, the religious leader Bienvenido Santiago Jr said: “We do not agree with a coup d’état, with a snap election … We do not want the fall of the government as an institution. What we want is the fall of corruption.”
