Philippine sect draws huge crowd to anti-corruption rally

Protesters hold signs calling for the resignation of Philippine President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr during an anti-corruption rally in Metro Manila. (EPA Images pic)

MANILA: A powerful Philippine religious sect rallied in Manila on Sunday, calling for accountability over a spiralling flood control scandal involving officials and lawmakers, with police estimating a crowd in the hundreds of thousands.

Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and parliament members – including President Ferdinand Marcos’s congressman cousin – have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called ghost infrastructure projects.

Sunday’s rally was called by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a church which has historically been a powerful voting bloc with ties to the Duterte political dynasty.

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Transparency for a Better Democracy”, INC members flocked to Manila’s Rizal Park to demand “truth and accountability”, said spokesman Edwil Zabala.

He told attendees that “we are not fighting the government. It is not our aim to bring down the government as an institution,” slamming what he said were attempts to portray the rally as an attempt to destabilise the administration.

Zabala cited the need to investigate “emerging evidence” in the multipronged probe.

Last week, a former congressman who fled the country after being implicated in the loss of millions of dollars in missing infrastructure funds released a video claiming President Marcos himself was involved, something the administration has derided as “wild speculation”.

“What’s saddening about this is our leaders were involved… We want change,” said Rake Tribiana, 32, a real estate broker and INC member at the rally.

“We are here not only because our church calls for this. This is the call of most of the Filipino people.”

AFP could not independently confirm police crowd estimates of up to half a million people.

A concurrent rally led by supporters of the Duterte family and explicitly calling for Marcos’s resignation drew an estimated 2,000 people.

Rage over so-called ghost infrastructure projects has been mounting in the Southeast Asian country since Marcos put them centre stage in a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding.

Sunday’s protests come on the heels of two powerful typhoons that left more than 250 people dead, many due to flooding, and just days after Marcos promised arrests in the corruption case before Christmas.

INC, which claims about three million members, helped Marcos and running mate Sara Duterte win the 2022 elections. In 2016, they endorsed Rodrigo Duterte ahead of his win.

In January this year, INC held a huge rally in Manila opposing the mooted impeachment of Vice President Duterte, who has had a spectacular falling out with one-time ally Marcos since their election victory.