MANILA: A powerful Philippine sect rallied in Manila on Sunday calling for accountability over a spiralling flood control scandal involving officials and lawmakers, with police estimating a crowd in the hundreds of thousands. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and parliament members have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called ghost infrastructure projects.
Sunday’s rally was called by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a church which has historically been a powerful voting bloc with ties to the Duterte political dynasty.
Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Transparency for a Better Democracy”, INC members flocked to Manila’s Rizal Park to demand “truth and accountability”, said spokesman Edwil Zabala. He told attendees that “we are not fighting the government. It is not our aim to bring down the government as an institution,” slamming what he said were attempts to portray the rally as an attempt to destabilise the administration.
Zabala cited the need to investigate “emerging evidence” in the multipronged probe.
Sunday’s protests come on the heels of two powerful typhoons that left more than 250 people dead, many due to flooding, and just days after Marcos promised arrests in the corruption case before Christmas. — AFP
