Outrage is growing in the Southeast Asian country, regularly hit by typhoons, since a corruption scheme involving fictitious flood control projects, including dikes, was revealed, which allegedly cost Filipinos hundreds of millions of dollars.
The petition, which has the support of the Makabayan bloc, a coalition of left-wing parties, accuses Marcos of betraying public trust by launching numerous public projects designed to redirect funds to his allies.
A copy of the document was delivered to the office of the secretary of the House of Representatives, “in accordance with regulations,” the petition’s authors announced today.
“The President has institutionalized a mechanism to divert more than 545.6 billion Philippine pesos (7.88 billion euros) in flood control funds, channeling them to friends and favorite businessmen and turning the public coffers into a private campaign fund for the 2025 midterm elections,” reads a summary of the document consulted by the France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
The plaintiffs also accuse Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of directly soliciting bribes.
“The President’s involvement in this vast system of corruption makes impeachment necessary (…) The people have been repeatedly and systematically robbed,” the brief states.
Dennis Coronacion, director of the Political Science Department at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, told AFP today that he doubted the impeachment process would be successful.
“This indictment has very little chance of being approved by the House Justice Committee, let alone in plenary session, because the President still has the support of members of the House of Representatives,” Coronacion said.
According to the Philippine Constitution, any citizen of the archipelago of 116 million inhabitants can file a petition for impeachment, provided they have the support of one of the more than 300 members of the House of Representatives.
