MANILA, Feb 25 — Philippine protesters took to the streets today on the 40th anniversary of the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, aiming their anger at a corruption scandal under his son’s current administration.
At a pair of protests barely a kilometre (0.6 miles) apart, demonstrators braved a scorching Manila sun to demand accountability for bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost the storm-battered archipelago billions of taxpayer dollars.
At one intersection, protesters briefly clashed with shield-wielding police who eventually gave way, allowing the procession to pass.
“Our money is being stolen (by politicians)… I want everyone involved to be jailed and punished, starting from the top,” 19-year-old high school senior Dustin Salazar told AFP near the monument to the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos.
“I’m not going to get tired of fighting for our country. If we want change, we must fight for it.”
Marcos, who was first elected president in 1965, imposed martial law seven years later, silencing the legislature, killing critics and allegedly embezzling billions from state coffers.
Four decades after he was ousted, protester Dee Van Nostrand, 72, called the country’s ongoing battle against corruption “exhausting”.
She said she travelled 180 kilometres to march in Manila because “we deserve a better government, we deserve a better life”.
Since putting the flood-control affair centre stage in a July speech, President Ferdinand Marcos has seen friend and foe alike, including a congressman cousin, swept up in the firestorm.
But not a single sitting lawmaker has been detained despite government promises of “big fish” arrests.
‘Protest fatigue’
Today’s rallies were the third major protest aimed at the flood-control scandal, and the first held on a workday.
They registered the lowest attendance yet, with police estimating a crowd of fewer than 6,000 across both venues in the early afternoon.
Lawrence Anthony Borja, a political science professor at Manila’s De La Salle University, told AFP he believed the flood-control issue was effectively “dead in the water”.
“Popular anger dissipated because ordinary citizens are used to disappointing outcomes, especially on matters concerning corruption,” he said.
The Philippines has a long history of scandals involving public funds, in which high-ranking politicians found guilty of corruption have typically escaped serious jail time.
But other analysts rejected the notion that small turnouts equalled apathy.
“Protest fatigue has been happening for years now… but we shouldn’t look at it as if this is going to make or break our reform agenda,” Michael Henry Yusingco, senior research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center in Manila, told AFP.
Wednesday’s event remained “important because it serves as an overt warning to the ombudsman and the prosecutors that they have a duty to fulfil”, he said of criminal cases in the pipeline.
University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco agreed, saying a lack of overt public anger did “not mean they are not monitoring the cases”.
Sitting with a group of seminarians today, Father Victor de Jesus, who was among the marchers 40 years ago, conceded the country’s ongoing corruption issues could be “more than a little frustrating”.
“But that’s why a revolution takes time,” the 65-year-old said, sweat dripping from his brow.
“It takes a lot of work.” — AFP
