Filipinos protest flood control fraud
MANILA
Thousands of Filipinos gathered on Sunday in Manila to express their anger over a ballooning scandal involving bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Rage over the so-called ghost infrastructure projects has been mounting in the Southeast Asian country since President Ferdinand Marcos put them center stage in a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding.
On Sept. 15, Marcos said he did not blame people for protesting "one bit" while calling for demonstrations to remain peaceful. The army has been placed on "red alert" as a precaution.
"If there's a budget for ghost projects, then why is there no budget for the health sector?" Aly Villahermosa, a 23-year-old nursing student from Metro Manila told AFP as an estimated crowd of 13,000 gathered yesterday morning in the capital's Luneta Park, calling the theft of public funds "truly shameful."
Teddy Casino, 56, chairman of left-wing alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, said the group was demanding not only the return of stolen funds but prison time for those involved.
"Corruption requires people to go to the streets and express their outrage in the hope of pressuring government to actually do their jobs," he said.
Even bigger crowds gathered later in the day to march down the thoroughfare known as EDSA, site of the People Power Movement protests that helped oust Marcos's dictator father from power in 1986.
The flood control scandal has already sparked leadership changes in both houses of Congress, with House speaker Martin Romualdez, a cousin of Marcos, tendering his resignation earlier this week as an investigation got underway.
Earlier this month, the owners of a construction firm accused nearly 30 House members and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials of taking cash payments.
