Disaster survivors group People Surge and other organizations under the Kilusang Bayan Kontra Kurakot (KBKK, or People’s Movement Against Corruption), stormed the Office of the Ombudsman in Manila on November 7. They demanded the agency to hold Ferdinand Marcos Jr accountable for his central role in massive corruption involving government infrastructure and flood control projects, as well as his approval of large-scale foreign mining operations that worsen flooding.

Protesters clashed with police to assert staging their program right at the gate of the Ombudsman office. The KBKK stood unfazed against the violence and brutality of police forces defending the Marcos regime and the bureaucrat-capitalists and corrupt politicians it represents.

The groups asserted that Marcos bears major responsibility since his office managed and led the formulation and finalization of the national budget, which bureaucrats turned into a source of illicit gains. Between 2022 and 2025, Marcos allocated ₱545 billion for 9,855 flood control projects. More than 6,000 of these were revealed to be defective, recycled, or incomplete projects.

In October, ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio disclosed in Congress that Marcos personally approved at least 3,700 additional projects worth ₱214.4 billion, which were funded from his discretionary UA fund between 2023 and 2025.

Based on official state data, Marcos allocated the UA fund’s ₱61.4 billion in 2023 for 1,889 projects and ₱153 billion in 2024 for 1,811 projects. The largest portion, or ₱141 billion, went to flood control projects, while the rest was for road repairs and multipurpose buildings. Most Marcos’ UA-funded projects are located in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Cebu—regions now under investigation for failed and ghost projects.

Prior to this, a Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism special report also revealed that Marcos received ₱21 million from two contractors as campaign contributions in 2022, violating reactionary election regulations.

“Tomorrow is the anniversary of Yolanda, a reminder that our government has not learned and continues to rob the people, drowning them in mud and flood,” People Surge National Alliance of Disaster Survivors spokesperson and Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) secretary general Mimi Doringo said. Doringo, a 2009 Typhoon Ondoy survivor, said what Filipinos need now is concrete action, compensation, and an end to the rule of corrupt millionaires and billionaires.

Farmers, whose lives and livelihoods are heavily affected by intense rains and widespread flooding, also joined the protest. “The worst disaster for farmers is not only the typhoon but the corruption in projects that are supposed to help us,” Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Ronnie Manalo said.

Manalo added, “Farmers lost again. Our income from yet unpaid debts are washed away along with our fields and livestock.” The KMP denounced farm-to-market road projects as useless and ridden with corruption. “They have become roads-to-farms for the corrupt!” Manalo declared.

Meanwhile, the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (PNE) condemned the Marcos regime’s environmental destruction, which worsens flooding in the country. “The severe floods and destruction of homes and livelihoods in Negros and Cebu stem from environmental plunder, and corruption only worsens the damage,” Kalikasan PNE’s Cathleen De Guzman said.

She added that the poor suffer most from the damage caused by foreign and bureaucrat-capitalist plunder of natural resources. “While foreigners and their political partners enrich themselves, the poor pay the price,” she said.

Over a hundred days have passed since the investigation into corruption in flood control projects began, yet no one has been held accountable or imprisoned. According to Niña Fegi of KBKK, “Until someone is jailed, the unity and struggle of the Filipino people remain imperative—to demand justice for disaster victims and for the hundreds of Filipinos suffering from corruption-driven poverty.”

On November 30, the KBKK will lead a massive national protest against corruption at Luneta Park in Manila and other parts of the country. The group’s main demand: “Hold everyone involved accountable!”

Aside from People Surge, Kadamay, KMP, and Kalikasan, other KBKK member organizations include Taumbayan Ayaw sa Magnanakaw at Abusado Network Alliance (TAMA NA or People Against Thieves and Abusers), Panatang Luntian (Green Oath), Movement Against Tyranny, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Bunyog Pagkakaisa, Greenpeace Philippines, Seniors Kontra Kurakot (Seniors Against Corruption), Social Workers Against Corruption, One Nation One Voice One Church, United People Against Corruption (UPAC), Working People Against Corruption, UP Diliman University Student Council, PUP Central Student Council, Gabriela, Babae para sa Inang Bayan (Women for the Motherland), San Pablo Ayaw sa Korapsyon (Sapak), Hiphop United, Health Alliance for Democracy, and Makabayan Coalition.