According to officials and witnesses, 49 people were arrested by Philippine police on suspicion of throwing rocks, bottles, and fire bombs at cops and obstructing heavily guarded highways and bridges that led to the presidential palace on Sunday during a nonviolent anti-corruption demonstration in the capital.
While over 33,000 protestors gathered at a historic park and a democracy monument in Manila, the fight broke out outside the nation's seat of power. A corruption scandal involving MPs, officials, and owners of construction companies who reportedly collected large payments from flood-control projects in the poor Southeast Asian nation frequently hit by typhoons and storms infuriated them.
About 70 Manila police officers were injured during the hours-long rampage by roughly 100 primarily club-wielding individuals, some of whom held Philippine flags and exhibited carton posters with anti-corruption messages. Because of the violence, schools were canceled.
The assailants splashed graffiti on walls, knocked down steel poles, broke glass panels, and trashed the lobby of a low-cost hotel along a busy route lined with eateries, banks, and university campuses before leaving at night, according to police, who said they used tear gas to try to disperse them.
Police have not yet identified the attackers, some of whom were carrying black flags featuring a skull and crossbones caricature, hours after the attack. Furthermore, it was unclear whether they had taken part in the nonviolent demonstrations before making their way to the White House. President Marcos Jr.'s whereabouts at the Malacanang presidential residence during the pandemonium was not immediately known.
Following the arrests, police issued a statement stating that the situation was "contained," but they also issued a warning that destruction and violence would not be accepted.
Althea Trinidad, a student activist, told The Associated Press in Manila, "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."
Trinidad is in Bulacan, a region north of Manila that experiences frequent flooding. According to officials, the majority of flood-control projects in Bulacan are either being looked into as being inadequate or nonexistent.
The head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, said in a statement, "Our goal is to strengthen our democracy, not to destabilize it." He urged people to demand accountability and stage nonviolent protests.
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