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Pam Castro Philippine protesters took to the streets Wednesday on the 40th anniversary of the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, aiming their anger at a corruption scandal under his son's current administration.At a pair of protests barely a kilometre (0.6 miles) apart, demonstrators braved a scorching Manila sun to demand accountability for bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost the storm-battered archipelago billions of taxpayer dollars.At one intersection, protesters briefly clashed with shield-wielding police who eventually gave way, allowing the procession to pass."Our money is being stolen (by politicians)... I want everyone involved to be jailed and punished, starting from the top," 19-year-old high school senior Dustin Salazar told AFP near the monument to the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos."I'm not going to get tired of fighting for our country. If we want change, we must fight for it."Marcos, who was first elected president in 1965, imposed martial law seven years later, silencing the legislature, killing critics and allegedly embezzling billions from state coffers.Four decades after he was ousted, protester Dee Van Nostrand, 72, called the country's ongoing battle against corruption "exhausting".She said she travelled 180 kilometres to march in Manila because "we deserve a better government, we deserve a better life".Since putting the flood-control affair centre stage in a July speech, President Ferdinand Marcos has seen friend and foe alike, including a congressman cousin, swept up in the firestorm.But not a single sitting lawmaker has been detained despite government promises of "big fish" arrests.Wednesday's rallies were the third major protest aimed at the flood-control scandal, and the first held on a workday.They registered the lowest attendance yet, with police estimating a crowd of fewer than 6,000 across both venues in the early afternoon.Lawrence Anthony Borja, a political science professor at Manila's De La Salle University, told AFP he believed the flood-control issue was effectively "dead in the water"."Popular anger dissipated because ordinary citizens are used to disappointing outcomes, especially on matters concerning corruption," he said.The Philippines has a long history of scandals involving public funds, in which high-ranking politicians found guilty of corruption have typically escaped serious jail time.But other analysts rejected the notion that small turnouts equalled apathy."Protest fatigue has been happening for years now... but we shouldn't look at it as if this is going to make or break our reform agenda," Michael Henry Yusingco, senior research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center in Manila, told AFP.Wednesday's event remained "important because it serves as an overt warning to the ombudsman and the prosecutors that they have a duty to fulfil", he said of criminal cases in the pipeline.University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco agreed, saying a lack of overt public anger did "not mean they are not monitoring the cases". 

An alliance of 30 influential Philippine business and civic organisations is demanding an independent investigation into what it describes as "excessive corruption" linked to government infrastructure projects.The call for action comes after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr disclosed last month the results of an internal audit into flood control projects, revealing troubling patterns of irregularity.Key findings showed that out of 545bn pesos ($9.63bn) in flood control spending since 2022, thousands of projects were either substandard, poorly documented, or non-existent.Some carried identical costs despite being in different locations, and only 15 out of more than 2,000 accredited contractors cornered 20% of the total budget.The allegations have spurred legislative inquiries in both chambers of Congress, and Marcos has said he will create an independent commission to investigate "these nefarious activities."The alliance expressed "outrage, disgust and disappointment" over the "shameful, unabated, continuing and excessive acts of graft and corruption" by many officials in Congress, the executive department and local government units."While we take note of the President admonishing the corrupt in government, we are concerned that the guilty among these officials will continue their merry way of robbing the people and filling their pockets," the groups said in a statement.They described the acts as a betrayal of public trust and a "treasonous" offence against Filipinos.There was no immediate comment from the offices of the president, the house speaker and senate president.The controversy has already led to the resignation of the public works secretary. His successor, Vince Dizon, has suspended all bidding for locally funded flood control projects, ordered courtesy resignations of all public works officials, and vowed to permanently blacklist contractors involved in fraudulent projects.The Philippine scandal unfolds as neighbouring Indonesia grapples with its own wave of public outrage. In recent weeks, mass protests have erupted across 32 provinces in Indonesia, many turning violent, with regional parliaments set ablaze.While Indonesia's streets have filled with demonstrators, the Philippine response has so far remained largely online, with citizens resorting to naming and shaming on social media. Some activist groups have begun mobilising on the ground, and others are calling on the public to take to the streets.