SOME 100,000 Filipinos trooped to various areas in the capital Manila on Sunday, November 30, 2025, to demand accountability for billions of pesos in anomalous flood-control projects involving several sitting lawmakers, politicians, and government officials in the Philippines.
“The call is urgent and it has to be now. People can no longer wait for all officials to be prosecuted and imprisoned,” said Fara Gamalo of Sinirangan Bisayas Kontra Korapsyon (Eastern Visayas Against Corruption).
“We have a call for ‘Resign All.’ All those involved should be held accountable, and alongside this, we’re calling for the establishment of a People’s Transition Council to oversee the government during the transition. This will ensure the ban on political dynasties running and holding positions,” Gamalo added, as their group and other progressive sectors held another “Baha sa Luneta” rally in Luneta Park.
At a separate venue for the “Trillion Peso March” at the People Power Monument in Quezon City, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), who had just returned from the Asian Mission Congress in Penang, Malaysia, officiated a Mass while urging Filipinos “to continue the unfinished work of the Edsa People Power Revolution."
“We returned to Edsa because this place holds the memory of peaceful courage. Here, our people once stood unarmed yet unafraid, choosing moral clarity over fear. Today, as our country confronts wounds inflicted by greed and impunity, we come again — not to tear down, but to call our leaders and ourselves back to the path of truth,” David said.
“The democracy restored by the Edsa People Power Movement may be flawed, unfinished, fragile, yet it is the only soil where genuine change can take root. And so we gather to protect it — not through force, but through fidelity,” the Catholic Church leader added.
Edsa, a major road network in Manila, has been a silent witness to the people’s uprising that led to the ouster of the late dictator president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986, and former president Joseph Estrada in 2001.
Elsewhere in the country, communities, civil society groups, youth sectors, and religious institutions also held their own anti-corruption rallies, many accompanied by prayers.
In Zamboanga City, clergy, consecrated persons, and laypeople gathered for a “Pilgrim Walk for Accountability and Justice," CBCP News reported.
“We raise our voices — not out of hatred, but out of deep love for our people and our country. We call for accountability, transparency, restitution and the restoration of dignity in public service. Above all, we call for truth, because healing begins with truth,” the Formation Center of the Prelature of Isabela de Basilan said in a November 30 statement.
In Cebu City, Archbishop Alberto Uy held a Mass at the Pilgrim Center of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu, as thousands of residents dressed in white joined a peace march against corruption along Osmeña Boulevard.
In Tacloban City, student and youth groups led protest actions.
“The youth, women, farmers and workers from Samar and Leyte are here, flooding Tacloban to fight government corruption. The times challenge us, and that’s why all sectors in Tacloban should call for all those involved in corruption to be held accountable,"
Paul Lachica, spokesperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan–Sinirangan Bisayas, said.
"Let’s continue to fight until we bring down the pests in society,” he added.
At least eight lawmakers and several public works officials have been charged with corruption over multibillion-peso “ghost” and rigged flood-control projects that have contributed to widespread flooding and deaths across the country during storm seasons.
On November 30, one former public works official personally returned 110 million pesos as part of the 300 million pesos in "kickbacks" he allegedly received from the rigged flood-control projects. (Ronald Reyes/SunStar Philippines)