Trillion Peso March, Sept. 21, 2025. Photo: News & Letters.
Tens of thousands of people in Manila, Philippines, along with thousands in other cities, took part in the “Trillion Peso March” on Sept. 21 to protest corruption in the awarding of government contracts to fake flood control projects. The trillion peso estimate of Greenpeace Philippines equates to about U.S. $18 billion, which was pilfered from funding intended for flood control and climate change mitigation.
Protesters filled Luneta Park, the site where a 1986 protest movement that toppled the kleptomaniacal Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship began. Already the Philippine Speaker of the House, nephew of the dictator Marcos (and cousin of current president “Bongbong” Marcos, or BBM) has resigned over the scandal.
ACCOUNTABILITY NOW!
One of the protesters, M. Mar, shared this message to social media: “I am not calling for BBM to resign because I don’t want Sara [Duterte] to replace her. No way! These protests are not about changing leadership or toppling the government. The country is screaming for accountability and better governance. President BBM, stand to put the THIEVES in jail! I know your family has a history of theft but I see you may be different from your father and want your legacy to be different. Prove it! Put the THIEVES in jail!”
Trillion Peso March, Sept. 21, 2025. Photo: News & Letters.
In the week after the protest, super typhoons Nando and Opong, strengthened by ocean waters that have increased in temperature for all of the past eight years, made multiple landfalls in the Philippines archipelago. A typhoon regains lost strength each time it hovers over the water between islands. According to a government agency, as of Sept. 28, more than 160,000 people in the Philippines are currently taking shelter in evacuation centers due to natural disasters, a category that includes both floods and landslides.
–Participant
Trillion Peso March, Sept. 21, 2025. Photo: News & Letters.