President Marcos said in July there were anomalies in most of the 9,855 flood control projects worth more than $9.5bn.
Police and protesters have engaged in scattered clashes as tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the Philippine capital, Manila, angered over a corruption scandal involving flood control projects that are believed to have cost billions of dollars.
With organisers hoping to draw one of the largest turnouts at anticorruption protests, police and soldiers were put on alert on Sunday to prevent possible outbreaks of violence.
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At least 17 people who threw rocks at riot police and set fire to the tyres of a barricade were arrested, local authorities reported.
Less than an hour later, police used a water cannon on another group of masked protesters.
According to the AFP news agency, some police picked up rocks and threw them back at demonstrators.
Manila Mayor Francisco Isko Moreno Domagoso said police officers were wounded in clashes with protesters and were receiving medical treatment.
“Manila CDRRMO [City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office] and Manila Health Department gave first aid to our policemen deployed in Mendiola today,” he wrote on Facebook. “They were rushed to the nearest district hospital, the Sampaloc Hospital so that they can be treated by our doctors. Let’s maintain order and peace in our city. Let’s all be careful.”
There has been violence recently at protests in another Southeast Asian nation, Indonesia, where demonstrators, infuriated by police violence, parliamentarians’ wages and soaring inflation, have been staging nationwide rallies.
Protesters in Manila earlier waved Philippine flags and held a banner that read, “No more, too much, jail them,” as they marched, demanding the prosecution of all those involved in corruption.
“I feel bad that we wallow in poverty and we lose our homes, our lives and our future while they rake in a big fortune from our taxes that pay for their luxury cars, foreign trips and bigger corporate transactions,” student activist Althea Trinidad told The Associated Press news agency.
“We want to shift to a system where people will no longer be abused.”
According to city estimates, Sunday morning’s protest in Luneta Park drew nearly 50,000 people.
Protesters hold signs during a rally against corruption at the EDSA Shrine in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, Philippines [Basilio Sepe/AP Photo]
Anger has been mounting over so-called ghost infrastructure projects since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr highlighted the scandal in July during his annual State of the Nation speech.
Marcos later established an independent commission to investigate what he referred to as anomalies in a majority of the 9,855 flood-control projects that were worth more than 545 billion pesos ($9.5bn).
Outrage from the public worsened after a wealthy couple, Sarah and Pacifico Discaya, who operated several construction companies, won flood control contracts that showed dozens of European and US luxury cars and SUVs they owned.
Marcos said on Monday that he did not blame people for protesting against the scandal “one bit” and called for the demonstrations to be peaceful. The president added that the army was on “red alert” as a precaution.
A protester waves a Philippine flag beside a burning truck in Manila [Aaron Favila/AP Photo]
Reporting from Manila, Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo said the protest was being led by Christian churches of all denominations, but the Catholic Church has “historically” been able to “galvanise the Filipino people”.
“It’s not a coincidence that these protests are happening on September 21, which is the anniversary of the declaration of martial law by former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr and is taking place on the very highway where two people power revolutions took place,” Lo said.
Lo added that protesters want the president to institute “lasting reforms” that would “eradicate any opportunity for corruption at any level of government”.
Aly Villahermosa, a 23-year-old nursing student, told AFP that she had waded through floods in the storm-prone country.
“If there’s a budget for ghost projects, then why is there no budget for the health sector?” she said, adding that the theft of public funds was “truly shameful”.