Workers want infra scam brains unmasked, jailed
THE labor sector yesterday vowed to sustain the fight against corruption beyond the “Trillion Peso March,” saying those behind numerous anomalous flood control projects must face justice.
“We will not stop until all the guilty are behind bars. We won’t stop until the plunderers are in jail). This struggle will continue until every peso of public funds is used for the people and not stolen by the corrupt,” Josua Mata, secretary general of the Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO), said in mixed English and Filipino.
The Trillion Peso March was organized in response to allegations of corruption in government flood control infrastructure projects. Among organizers are labor and Church groups, civil society organizations, and political coalitions. Major venues of the protest actions in Metro Manila are the Luneta Park in Manila and the People Power Monument in Quezon City.
Police said it monitored at least 61,000 protesters in 15 areas, mostly at the People Power Monument and Luneta Park. Anti-corruption mass actions were also held in other areas nationwide.
Labor leader Luke Espiritu, at the Luneta Park, urged the people to keep the pressure up even as government bodies are conducting parallel inquiries into the extent of the public works projects scam.
“This is just the beginning. We cannot stop until all who are involved are unmasked and charged in court. It is necessary to clean up the entire system. We cannot leave the job of weeding out the corrupt to the political dynasties who made this plunder possible in the first place,” Espiritu told the crowd of protesters.
Espiritu, president of the labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), also said politicians and political dynasties are at the top of the food chain where the multi-billion-peso irregularities in the government flood control projects are concerned.
“The real masterminds of the flood control scam must be held accountable: the politicians. We must not lose sight of the fact that contractors only occupy the lower rungs in the food chain of systematic corruption,” Espiritu said.
He said the magnitude of the corruption, the sheer numbers of contracts involved, and the years it has been happening point to the involvement of ranking government officials.
“All the public officials involved, from members of the Lower House and the Senate, all the way to the Executive, they are the brains of this flood control projects scam. They conspired to loot the public coffers. All these corrupt government people should be hunted down and thrown in jail,” he added.
Akbayan party list Rep. Chel Diokno, among several personalities who attended the protests at the People Power Monument (PPM), told reporters those involved in the corruption should be held accountable regardless of their political affiliation.
“They should be punished if they committed a crime,” he said in Filipino.
Diokno also said it is the right time to hold accountable those responsible, noting that people are already angry over the corruption in the government.
The labor group Nagkaisa, through its chairperson Sonny Matula, said the fight against corruption will continue.
“EDSA says enough! Ang laban ay hindi lang ngayong araw. Bukas, sa makalawa, at sa mga susunod pang panahon, magpapatuloy ang ating pagbabantay. Bantayan ang pera ng bayan, wag hayaang kurakutin ng iilan. Ang buwis ng tao, para sa tao, hindi para sa bulsa ng kurap (The fight is not only for today. Tomorrow and in the coming days, we will continue our watch. Guard public funds… Taxes are for the people, not for the pockets of corrupt individuals),” he said in a statement.
Matula and Mata noted a large part of the public funds comes from workers’ hard-earned wages.
Mata said, “Those trillions came from workers’ sweat and taxes. Yet instead of protecting our communities from floods, senators, congressmen, DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) officials, and their business partners pocketed the money. This is not just corruption. It is plunder, treason, and a crime against the Filipino people.”
Matula said, “Corruption in flood control projects, ghost infrastructure, and other misused public funds is abominable — robbing workers and communities of jobs, services, and safety. The people’s action at EDSA is proof that Filipinos will not tolerate impunity. Corruption is not just theft. It is plunder, and plunder must end now.”
CONCRETE SOLUTIONS
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said the issue of corruption-ridden flood control projects must not be allowed to “die a natural death” and should instead lead to justice and accountability.
In a pastoral statement, the CBCP said it will be unacceptable for the issue to just be swept under the rug and forgotten just like the other issues and anomalies in the country.
“Our people deserve concrete solutions — not empty rhetoric, not endless political grandstanding, not the usual delaying tactics. Enough is enough!” the CBCP said.
“We will no longer accept that this investigation simply die a natural death, like so many before it that eventually ended in political accommodations and compromises,” it added.
Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo, in his homily during the Holy Mass at the EDSA Shrine, described the prevailing condition in the country as a “time of infamy.”
He lamented the massive corruption, paraphrasing the words of then US President Franklin Roosevelt after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
“Borrowing the words of the US President, pwede masabi na our times today, with the issues of corruption, is the Day of Infamy, the Time of Infamy,” said Bagaforo, chair of the CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA).
The Holy Mass was attended by hundreds of members of various religious groups and the laity, who were set to attend the Trillion Peso March at the nearby People Power Monument.
At the People Power Monument, Cubao Bishop Elias Ayuban said in his homily that greedy people have a new disease, “klepto-spirosis,” wherein public funds are stolen with the thieves difficult to cure.
He said the people should not allow the “disease” to continue spreading.
Some 300 members of the Philippine trade and general workers and organization (PTGWO) gathered at the Edsa Shrine asked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to teach corrupt government officials a lesson.
Sonny Diaz of PTGWO said their goal is a united front against corrupt government officials who, he said, are getting salaries from the people.
PROTESTERS
The protesters at the PPM began gathering at the vicinity at around 7 a.m. A few hundreds of protesters were in the area at around 8:30 a.m., including members of the United People’s Initiative (UPI) and Tindig Pilipinas.
UPI is an organization supportive of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Among those seen in the area were retired military generals Romeo Poquiz and Orlando de Leon.
The UPI group set up a tent near the monument displaying placards, including one addressed to Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. that reads: “Gen. Brawner, it is time you support the call of the people.”
During the UPI’s program, a member of the group held up a placard that said: “Sara lead! Marcos step down.” It was referring to Vice President Sara Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The Luneta protest, “Baha sa Luneta: Aksyon na Laban sa Korapsyon” organized by students and activist groups, saw the presence of mass action veterans former Bayan Muna representative Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza of Gabriela, San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, Sr. Mary John Mananzan, former Bayan Muna representative Teddy Casiño Karapatan secretary Cristina Palabay, and Renato Reyes.
Several movie and television personalities were also seen in the Lunena protest such as Angel Aquino, Maris Racal Elijah Canlas, Jodi Sta. Maria, Andrea Brilliantes and Ms. Philippines Earth Joy Barcoma.
A stage was set at the corner of Recto-Mendiola where a program was held.
Aside from the placards and streamers bearing protest words, also seen being carried by a group of protesters is the Straw Hat Pirates flag, which in anime become a symbol of Monkey D. Luffy’s fight for freedom.
The said the protest emblem has become a global protest sign from Indonesia, Nepal, and now the Philippines.
Among the early arrivals are members of militant groups Karapatan, Health Alliance for Democracy and Gabriela Women’s party-list.
Students from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo and other schools also trooped to the site.
Film director Joel Lamangan told reporters the protest action is meant to “shake” government officials and private contractors linked to the “ghost” and substandard flood control projects.
“I religiously pay my taxes and it is just being robbed,” he said in Filipino.
More than 100 runners also took part in a community run from UP Diliman in Quezon City to Luneta, a distance of around 16-kilometers, to join the protest action.
DONATIONS
Militant Makabayan lawmakers demanded that Marcos Jr. and Duterte immediately “disclose the full extent of their acceptance of prohibited campaign donations from government contractors and submit themselves to the legal and political consequences of their brazen violations of election law.”
“We call on the public: continue to transform your righteous anger into organized action. Today, the people are showing their power. We must sustain this momentum until the highest officials are held accountable. No one is above the law. Not even the President and Vice President of the Republic,” party-list Reps. Antonio Tinio (ACT) and Renee Co (Kabataan) said in a statement. They were among the lawmakers who joined the rallies.
They said the recent exposé of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) “reveals a blatant violation of Section 95 of the Omnibus Election Code, which explicitly prohibits candidates from receiving donations from entities doing business with the government.”
“The evidence is staggering and undeniable,” they said in a joint statement. “These are not campaign contributions—they are down payments on the wholesale auction of government contracts. Election law explicitly prohibits candidates from accepting donations from entities holding government contracts. This law exists precisely to prevent the conflict of interest now rotting the core of our governance.”
The PCIJ report said that based on his Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE), the sworn and notarized disclosures of campaign contributions received and expenses incurred during the 2022 National Elections, Marcos Jr. received P20 million from contractor Rodulfo Hilot Jr.
The Makabayan bloc pointed out that Rudhil Construction “saw its government contracts balloon from P2.7 billion in 2023 to P3.5 billion by 2024 — nearly a billion-peso increase under the Marcos administration.”
They also cited a P1-million donation from Jonathan Quirante, “whose Quirante Construction experienced the most dramatic surge: from P1.9 billion in 2022 to P3 billion in 2023—a staggering billion-peso leap in just one year after bankrolling the President’s campaign.”
The same PCIJ report showed that based on her SOCE, Duterte benefited from P19.9 million in campaign advertisements paid for by Glenn Escandor’s Esdevco Realty Corporation. – With Ashzel Hachero and Wendell Vigilia
