MANILA: Thousands massed in the Philippine capital on Sunday demanding accountability over a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure scandal that has seen scores of officials, lawmakers and construction firm owners accused of corruption.
Rage over so-called ghost flood-control projects has been mounting for months in the archipelago country of 116 million, where entire towns have been buried in floodwaters driven by powerful typhoons in recent months.
President Ferdinand Marcos has seen friend and foe alike, including a congressman cousin, swept up by the spiraling scandal since he first put the issue center stage in a July national address.
“Put them in jail now!” protesters chanted as they marched down the Manila thoroughfare known as EDSA, site of the People Power Movement that helped oust Marcos’s father from power in 1986.
Demonstrators in the capital’s Luneta Park, a short distance from the presidential palace, held crocodile-shaped signs calling for an end to systemic corruption.
