In its 57th anniversary statement, the CPP declared that, “The ruling semicolonial and semifeudal system under the US-Marcos regime continues to sink deeper into crisis. The rotten system at its core is becoming increasingly putrid, amid blatant corruption of Marcos and his fellow bureaucratic-capitalist thieves... The situation urgently demands revolutionary change to reject the old path and bring the country on to the road of freedom, democracy, and progress.”
The net trust rating of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. slipped to -14% in the Pulse Asia survey released on December 30, 2025. This is in the aftermath of the explosion of the popular outrage over the expose of the role of key executive officials and lawmakers in the systemic corruption. Though corruption in the Philippines is not a new problem, its extent compelled Marcos Jr., to feign surprise and publicly berated his allies for getting kickbacks from the government’s infrastructure projects.
Corruption scandals have dominated the news since 2024, when Vice President Sara Duterte was accused of misusing the confidential funds allocated to her office. This led to her impeachment in the House of Representatives in February, but the Senate delayed the impeachment trial. In July, the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment case was unconstitutional. The appointment of a new Ombudsman close to Marcos Jr. led to an extensive probe into the anomalous expenses of Sara Duterte and the other children of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
This year, 2025, in a televised government and legislative investigations, the Descaya couple, the contractors who were in the center of the web of corruption, revealed that though these illegal operations peaked in 2025, these started in 2016 under the former President Rodrigo Duterte. The untimely death by “falling into a ravine” of former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Undersecretary Cabral, one of the key operators of the “kickback system” at the department, further inflamed on-going investigations.
The gravity of systemic corruption was so pervasive that it triggered the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Martin Romualdez and the Senate President Chiz Escudero in September, for their involvement in corruption.
Former House of Representatives (HOR) and Chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations Zaldy Co exposed that President Marcos Jr. and then Speaker of the HOR (and cousin of Marcos Jr.), Romualdez instructed him to make PhP100 billion of insertions in the National Budget and facilitate kickbacks. These instructions were coursed through Marcos Jr.’s Executive Secretary Bersamin and Budget Secretary Pangandaman. These top executive officials were merely forced to resign but no investigation was made on their role in the systemic corruption and the role of the President in the whole scheme of illegal transactions.
The much-hyped Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) created by Marcos Jr. purportedly to investigate the corruption scandal is now defunct, without substantial result, after all of its members resigned leaving only the Chairperson in the office without support.
No big personalities were jailed, contrary to Marcos Jr.’s pledge to have the main corrupt personalities imprisoned before Christmas. The prevailing public perception is that Marcos Jr. is merely interested in appeasing public anger and escape accountability in the whole corruption mess.