Protesters carry signs as they gather during a rally against government corruption at the EDSA People Power Monument in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, Philippines, Sunday. Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)
Protesters carry signs as they march during a rally against government corruption at the EDSA People Power Monument in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, Philippines, Sunday. Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)
Dozens arrested and hurt in clashes with police near Philippine presidential palace
MANILA, Philippines (AP) 鈥 Philippine police arrested 49 people suspected of hurling rocks, bottles and fire bombs at officers and blocking heavily guarded roads and bridges leading to the presidential palace Sunday while a peaceful anti-corruption rally took place in the capital, officials and witnesses said.
Thousands of police officers were deployed to secure separate protests in a historic Manila park and near a democracy monument along the main EDSA highway, also in the capital region, where organizers hoped to draw one of the largest turnouts of anti-corruption protesters in the country in recent years. (Sept. 21, 2025)
Thousands of police officers were deployed to secure separate protests in a historic Manila park and near a democracy monument along the main EDSA highway, also in the capital region, where organizers hoped to draw one of the largest turnouts of anti-corruption protesters in the country in recent years. (Sept. 21, 2025)
Protesters carry signs as they gather during a rally against government corruption at the EDSA People Power Monument in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, Philippines, Sunday. Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)
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Protesters shout slogans during an anti-corruption rally at Manila's Rizal Park, Philippines on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Protesters carry signs as they march during a rally against government corruption at the EDSA People Power Monument in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, Philippines, Sunday. Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)
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Protesters gathers during an anti-corruption rally in Manila's Rizal Park, Philippines on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
By Jim Gomez, Joeal Calupitan And Aaron Favila The Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines (AP) 鈥 Philippine police arrested 49 people suspected of hurling rocks, bottles and fire bombs at officers and blocking heavily guarded roads and bridges leading to the presidential palace Sunday while a peaceful anti-corruption rally took place in the capital, officials and witnesses said.
The melee outside the country鈥檚 seat of power unfolded while more than 33,000 other protesters rallied in a historic park and a democracy monument in Manila. They expressed outrage over a involving lawmakers, officials and construction company owners who allegedly pocketed huge kickbacks from flood-control projects in the impoverished Southeast Asian country that is regularly buffeted by storms and typhoons.
The hourslong rampage by about 100 mostly club-wielding people, some of whom waved Philippine flags and displayed carton posters with anti-corruption slogans, wounded about 70 Manila law enforcers, according to the Manila police. Schools were canceled due to the violence.
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Police said they lobbed tear gas to try to disperse the attackers, who sprayed graffiti on walls, toppled steel posts, shattered glass panels and ransacked the lobby of a budget inn along a popular road dotted with university campuses, banks and restaurants before dispersing at night.
Hours after the assault, police have yet to identify the attackers, some of whom carried black flags with the caricature of a skull and crossbones. It was also unclear if they had earlier participated in the peaceful protests before heading toward the presidential office. It was not immediately known if President Marcos Jr. was in the Malacanang presidential palace during the chaos.
Police said in a statement after the arrests that the situation was 鈥渃ontained鈥 but warned that violence and vandalism would not be tolerated.
Protesting corruption
鈥淚 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,鈥 student activist Althea Trinidad told The Associated Press in Manila.
Trinidad lives in Bulacan, a flood-prone province north of Manila where officials said the most flood-control projects were being investigated either as substandard or nonexistent.
鈥淥ur purpose is not to destabilize but to strengthen our democracy,鈥 Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the head of the Catholic Bishops鈥 Conference of the Philippines, said in a statement. He called on the public to demonstrate peacefully and demand accountability.
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Marcos first highlighted the flood-control corruption scandal in July in his annual
He later established an independent commission to investigate what he said were anomalies in many of the 9,855 flood-control projects worth more than 545 billion pesos ($9.5 billion) that were supposed to have been undertaken since he took office in mid-2022. He called the scale of corruption 鈥渉orrible鈥 and accepted his public works secretary’s resignation.
Public outrage erupted when a who ran several construction companies that won lucrative flood-control project contracts showed dozens of European and American luxury cars they owned during media interviews. The fleet included a British luxury car costing 42 million pesos ($737,000) that they said they bought because it came with a free umbrella.
