Members of various progressive groups march from EDSA Shrine to the People Power Monument in Quezon City on September 13, 2025, to call for the mass arrest of all public officials involved in anomalous flood control projects.The STAR / Michael Varcas

'Do you blame them?' Marcos Jr. says he'd join street protests if he could

15 Sep 2025, 02:41 by Jean Mangaluz · philstar

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that if he were not president he would be among those marching in the streets against corruption.

Asked about mass mobilizations organized in response to the flood-control corruption scandal, Marcos said he did not blame people for being angry and that they had the right to be outraged.

He warned, however, that protests could escalate to the levels seen in Indonesia and Nepal if the government failed to act.

“Since this has all been exposed, well, it's actually known to many people, but it has now been exposed to the general public, do you blame them for going out into the streets?” Marcos said at a press conference at Malacañang Palace on Monday, September 15.

“If I wasn't president, I might be out in the streets with them. So, of course, they are enraged," he added. "Of course, they are angry. I am angry. We should all be angry. Because what's happening is not right. So, yes, express it. You come, you make your feelings known to these people and make them answerable for the wrongdoings that they have done.”

He encouraged demonstrators to make their grievances known but urged that protests remain peaceful, saying police would have to intervene if they did not.

The Palace on Friday said Marcos respected mass mobilizations as an exercise of free expression but warned against would-be destabilizers who might exploit the protests.

While Marcos called attention to flood-control anomalies, his family, led by Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who was a ruling dictator in the 1970s to 1980s, was deposed in mass protests against corruption and electoral fraud callled People Power Revolution in 1986. An estimated $5 billion to $10 billion in public funds were siphoned off to offshore and secret accounts, funding lavish properties and lifestyle, during the Marcos Sr. regime.

The planned protests against corruption on Sunday, September 21 will be held simultaneously at the People Power Monument in Quezon City and at Rizal Park in Manila.