Dozens arrested, hurt in clashes with police near Philippine presidential palace

Philippine police arrested 49 folks suspected of hurling rocks, bottles and fireplace bombs at officers and blocking closely guarded roads and bridges resulting in the presidential palace on Sunday whereas a peaceable anti-corruption rally passed off in the capital, officers and witnesses mentioned.

The melee outdoors the nation’s seat of energy unfolded whereas greater than 33,000 different protesters rallied in a historic park and a democracy monument in Manila.

They expressed outrage over a corruption scandal involving lawmakers, officers and development firm homeowners who allegedly pocketed enormous kickbacks from flood-control initiatives in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation that’s recurrently buffeted by storms and typhoons.

Police protect themselves beside a burning container throughout clashes with anti-corruption protesters in Manila, Philippines, Sunday, September 21, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
AP

The hourslong rampage by about 100 largely club-wielding folks, a few of whom waved Philippine flags and displayed carton posters with anti-corruption slogans, wounded about 70 Manila legislation enforcers, in keeping with the Manila police. Schools had been cancelled as a result of violence.

Police mentioned they lobbed tear gasoline to attempt to disperse the attackers, who sprayed graffiti on partitions, toppled metal posts, shattered glass panels and ransacked the foyer of a funds inn alongside a preferred highway dotted with college campuses, banks and eating places earlier than dispersing at night time.

Hours after the assault, police have but to determine the attackers, a few of whom carried black flags with the caricature of a cranium and crossbones. It was additionally unclear if they’d earlier participated in the peaceable protests earlier than heading towards the presidential workplace. It was not instantly identified if President Marcos Jr was in the Malacanang presidential palace throughout the chaos.

Police mentioned in a press release after the arrests that the scenario was “contained” however warned that violence and vandalism wouldn’t be tolerated.

“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,” pupil activist Althea Trinidad advised The Associated Press in Manila.

Trinidad lives in Bulacan, a flood-prone province north of Manila the place officers mentioned probably the most flood-control initiatives had been being investigated both as substandard or nonexistent.

“Our purpose is not to destabilise but to strengthen our democracy,” Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the pinnacle of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, mentioned in a press release. He known as on the general public to reveal peacefully and demand accountability.

Marcos first highlighted the flood-control corruption scandal in July in his annual state of the nation speech.

He later established an unbiased fee to research what he mentioned had been anomalies in most of the 9,855 flood-control initiatives price greater than 545 billion pesos ($9.5 billion) that had been speculated to have been undertaken since he took workplace in mid-2022.

He known as the dimensions of corruption “horrible” and accepted his public works secretary’s resignation.

Public outrage erupted when a rich couple who ran a number of development firms that received profitable flood-control challenge contracts confirmed dozens of European and American luxurious automobiles they owned throughout media interviews.

The fleet included a British luxurious automobile costing 42 million pesos ($737,000) that they mentioned they purchased as a result of it got here with a free umbrella.