In recent weeks, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal and various parts of Asia have been rocked by corruption scandals. Gen Zs are outraged: nepo babies have shamelessly flaunted their lavish lifestyle, while the majority are drowning in deeper poverty and governments are squeezing the poor with austerity.
The massive indignation rallies in the region are no longer mere demands for transparency and accountability, but for genuine democracy—no longer for a mere change in leadership, but for a change in the system itself.
Recent events have pointed out what Millennials have been saying all along—that corruption is not simply an abominable phenomenon of unmoderated human greed, but more importantly, it is deeply ingrained in the political system.
Saving the system
This is clearly illustrated by how quickly the flood control scandal in the Philippines has unraveled. President Marcos Jr reported in his 2024 State of the Nation Address (SONA) the completion of around 5,500 flood control projects worth Php245 billion since 2022. Days later, several parts of the country were submerged in floodwaters due to monsoon rains driven by Typhoon Carina. It was embarrassing for the president, but it took another year, in his 2025 SONA, for him to order an investigation.
The flood control corruption scandal revolves around the diversion of billions of public funds to a network of favored contractors, lawmakers, and officials tied to flood control projects over the past three years. The investigation has also revealed that despite the reported completion of 5,500 flood control projects, many are either substandard or entirely non-existent.
In the following weeks, some heads rolled, several lawmakers were implicated in pocketing billions of pesos and even in owning the contracting corporations, and the contractors and their families were publicly shamed. The president’s cousin stepped down as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, after having been linked to the scandal. The Senate President was ousted.
The president initiated a website where people could report anomalous flood control projects. But only around Php540 billion in projects were reported — just 45% of the Php1.2 trillion budget for flood control in 2022-2025. The president also formed an independent commission to investigate these anomalies. This move is as unsettling as the website he created, as it has the intended effect of subduing people’s outrage and exempting the president from investigation. The controversial public works department (DPWH) only recently removed the Php252-billion allocation for flood control for 2026, which could have sailed through without Congressional scrutiny had the scandal not erupted.
Clearly, these are attempts at damage control, designed to lend credibility to the president’s anti-corruption posturing and consolidate his weakening political clout. But more importantly, the moves are also meant to uphold the national budget’s role as a cash cow for the self-serving interests of politicians, the president included.
The presidential posturing is failing. It cannot cover up the fact that corruption is ingrained in the system—that it literally runs in the blood of dynastic and corrupt families in the Executive and Legislative branches, who treat the bureaucracy like their own profit-making enterprise, the president’s family included.
They use their government positions to create laws and policies that favor foreign and elite interests. They operate under the system of patronage, cronyism, and nepotism. Then, they use and dispense public funds to get political support and loyalty for personal gain. This, in a nutshell, is bureaucrat capitalism.
The role of oligarchs
The Filipino youth, probably having been handed down the core memory of the Marcos dictatorship and four decades of neoliberalism, have quickly elucidated bureaucrat capitalism. The discussion has gone far beyond shaming the greedy nouveau-riche contractors who had the gall to boast that their fortunes swelled after bagging lucrative government deals. Youth activists are explaining further the economic oligarchs’ role in bureaucrat capitalism and the ultimate accountability of the system’s chief executive.
The country’s richest billionaires bankroll and control the country’s biggest political parties—that alone reveals how undemocratic and rotten to the core the political and economic systems have become.
Manny Villar, whose net worth has increased 121% from 2022, is behind the Nacionalista Party. His son and daughter are Senators—the daughter replaced her mother, while the son was the DPWH secretary in 2016-2021 before he became Senator. Enrique Razon’s net worth grew 95% from 2022. He is behind the National Unity Party. Ramon Ang’s net worth saw 48% growth in the last three years. He is behind the Nationalist People’s Coalition.
IBON estimates that in the 20th Congress these three political parties control 42% of the Senate, 26% of the House of Representatives, and 33% of governorships. What do we expect then from policymaking?
Oligarchs have profited immensely from neoliberal policymaking. The government has practically transferred land, forests, water, power, minerals, renewable energy, transport, and public infrastructure into the hands of favored oligarchs. The government has allowed the plunder of the economy by foreign corporations in partnership with the domestic oligarchs. Ultimately, the government deregulates and simply allows unregulated, unsupervised, uncontrolled profiteering. What do you gain from all of this, if you are government? You get to control public funds and use it to sustain this “growth model”, which in turn sustains your own position of power and immense private gain.
King of Pork
The pork barrel system has become the most efficient way for politicians to gain control of public funds. Congressmen, strangely as lawmakers, receive appropriations from the budget for their proposed pet projects in their respective districts, preferably the unverifiable flood control infrastructure. As project proponents, they get to rig the bidding process and demand kickbacks from both contractors and other commissioning officials. In one estimate, more than half of the cost of the project goes to corruption. Including allowable deductions such as taxes, it appears that only 30% of the allocation that the Congressman receives goes to the implementation of the project.
This is why the president’s “anti-corruption drive” is purely performative, if not a cover-up to shield the Executive from accountability. The National Expenditure Program (NEP) is the president’s budget submission to Congress, where pork allocations are already included. These are further bloated by lawmakers through insertions, oftentimes railroaded during the bicameral conference, then passed as the General Appropriations Act (GAA), then signed by the president.
President Marcos Jr has full knowledge of these insertions—some are also upon his request—as well as the entire process of Congressmen coming up with project ideas at the last minute. The president also gets to retain his own pork and the budget of the Office of the President, including Php4.5 billion in confidential and intelligence funds, through “parliamentary courtesy”.
But what is most controversial under the Marcos administration is the phenomenal increase in unprogrammed appropriations—projects and programs that do not have earmarked funds. Congressmen have either listed their pet projects under unprogrammed appropriations or bumped off programmed items to unprogrammed status to insert their pet projects in the programmed appropriations. Either way, the government will eventually have to raise funds for both, usually from the earnings of government-owned and controlled corporations.
Unprogrammed appropriations jumped from Php251 billion in 2022 to Php807 billion in 2023. The differences between unprogrammed appropriations in the NEP and in the GAA have also been staggering: Php100 billion in 2022; Php219 billion in 2023; Php443 billion in 2024; and Php373 billion in 2025. There was zero difference in the six years before that, which only shows that under the Marcos Jr administration, there has been unbridled Congressional insertions, amendments, or even the controversial ‘budget errata’, which were eventually signed off by the president.
Shifting power
Corruption under the regime of bureaucrat capitalism squanders public funds that could have gone to much-needed social services. It robs the poor of well-deserved infrastructure that could have boosted their economic activity and livelihoods. To illustrate, Filipinos need flood control systems, as the country is already the climate-riskiest in the world due to government’s systemic neglect. But instead of scrapping pork barrel allocations at the height of the corruption scandal, the Marcos Jr government removed the allocation for flood control.
The ironic aspect of budgeting for bureaucrat capitalism is that it is the poor and middle class who fund the national budget through the regressivity of taxation, while there is no billionaire wealth tax and corporate taxes are slashed. Yet, infrastructure for oligarchs and corrupt officials, debt servicing, and militarism get the largest budget allocations. Social services, welfare and protection, agriculture, and manufacturing get miniscule allocations—they are basically neglected. Then, the Marcos administration goes on a borrowing rampage to pay off its debts—debts that were used to prop up the neoliberal economy and eventually support bureaucrat capitalism, debts that will be paid for by the people.
Recent upheavals, as the Gen Zs would put it, feel like a make-or-break moment for the country, the region, and the youth. But history’s receipts are clear: people’s resistance doesn’t just shake the system—it flips the whole script.
