On November 30, 2025, the streets of Manila witnessed a surge of political unrest as thousands of protesters gathered in two of the city’s most symbolic locations—Mendiola and EDSA—calling for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign amid mounting corruption allegations. The demonstrations, which unfolded just a stone’s throw from the Malacañang Palace, laid bare deep divisions within the Philippine opposition and highlighted simmering frustrations over elite dominance, foreign influence, and the country’s ongoing struggle with inequality and crime.
The day’s events were anything but uniform. According to Rappler, leftist groups, led by the Bayan coalition, marched through Recto Avenue demanding the resignation of both President Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte. Their message was uncompromising: “The program cannot end without pointing the issue toward Marcos. He is the target of our anti-corruption campaign,” declared Bayan secretary general Raymond Palatino. Palatino referenced explosive claims that Marcos himself had solicited kickbacks from public works projects, insisting, “The investigation reaches all the way to Malacañang.”
However, the leftist protest in Mendiola was cut short by a technical hiccup—a malfunctioning generator rendered their microphones useless, forcing organizers to scale back their program. Only Bayan president Renato Reyes managed to speak on behalf of the coalition before demonstrators marked the end of their rally by destroying a Marcos-Duterte effigy. The group ultimately decided not to join the parallel rally at EDSA, citing a deadlock in negotiations with organizers who were reluctant to explicitly call for President Marcos’s resignation.
Security was unusually tight. Authorities, wary of a repeat of the violent clashes that marred the September 21 protests, deployed 12,000 police officers across Manila. Fences, barbed wire, and barricades were set up throughout Mendiola, restricting protesters to a point some 300 meters from the Peace Arch. “The deployment is overkill. What a waste of money,” Palatino remarked, adding, “The president looks paranoid, afraid of people demanding accountability.”
More than two hours after the leftist groups dispersed, a contingent of pro-Duterte supporters arrived from Liwasang Bonifacio. Their message was more nuanced: while they echoed calls for accountability, they drew a clear line at implicating Vice President Sara Duterte. “Is she involved in the corruption President Marcos mentioned? If it can be shown that she is involved, then we too will call for her resignation,” said Jaime L. Miralles, president of the Association of Genuine Labor Organizations and a member of the Save the Philippines coalition. When pressed about Vice President Duterte’s alleged mishandling of confidential funds—a controversy cited by House lawmakers when they impeached her in February—Miralles dismissed it as “an old issue.”
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, observing the demonstrations from behind a fence, became a target for hecklers. “The nerve you have! Addict! You’re such a—!” one pro-Duterte protester shouted through a megaphone. Remulla, maintaining his composure, responded, “It’s okay. I can take it.”
The day also saw a handful of loyalists to President Marcos make a brief appearance on Recto Avenue. Their demonstration was short-lived, lasting less than half an hour. Omar Akbar, convenor of Sulu for BBM, told Rappler, “Calling for his resignation is a shallow reason. They should just wait for the 2028 elections.”
While the protests in Manila focused on corruption and the future of national leadership, a parallel critique of the Marcos administration was unfolding in Davao City. On November 29, Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte—son of former president Rodrigo Duterte—issued a scathing statement accusing the Marcos government of allowing foreign interference and perpetuating the country’s entrenched wealth gap. According to The Manila Times, Duterte argued that Philippine society had “drifted back to where it once was: maintaining a stark wealth gap in which the elites and the petite bourgeoisie defend the existing order, while the masses are treated less as citizens than as livestock to be managed and harvested for their benefit.”
Duterte’s criticism went further, targeting the United States’ influence on Philippine foreign policy and the use of international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) to suppress resistance to what he described as neocolonial dynamics. He pointed to the formation of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) by President Marcos as evidence of an “imperial posture” and a troubling willingness to allow foreign actors to shape domestic policy. “The message is clear: the machinery of the state can still move with great force, but not against those who built, benefit from, and now carefully maintain it, only against those left to bear its weight,” Duterte said.
He lamented what he saw as uneven law enforcement that leaves vulnerable populations exposed, questioning the motivations of institutions meant to protect the public. “What is striking is the apparent indifference of many of the very institutions and individuals who are supposed to defend the Constitution and protect the public interest; their lack of visible urgency raises the question of whom the system is really designed to serve,” he remarked.
Duterte also cited a “downward trajectory” in the country, which he traced to the recent release of high-profile figures linked to the drug crisis—a move widely welcomed by foreign diplomats from the United States and other Western nations. He described this as a turning point, marking a return to an environment where illegal drugs are pervasive and predatory actors operate with relative impunity. “What the country is seeing is the stealing of hard-earned taxes; however, the community continues to absorb and normalize the situation and simply move on,” he noted.
Defending his father’s legacy, Duterte lamented that former president Rodrigo Duterte—once lauded for his hardline stance against drugs and criminality—was now being portrayed as a villain. He questioned, “When did being ‘at war with drugs’ begin to be framed as a detrimental stance for society while the trade and the beneficiaries of drugs are ‘normalized’?”
The events in Manila and Davao underscore the complex and fractious political landscape facing the Philippines as 2025 draws to a close. While opposition groups remain divided over the scope and targets of their demands, there is a shared sense of urgency about the country’s direction—whether it’s the fight against corruption, the role of foreign powers, or the widening chasm between rich and poor. The coming months will likely reveal whether these disparate voices can find common ground or if the nation’s divisions will only deepen further.
