Tens of thousands of anti-corruption protesters in the Philippines are calling for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to resign. Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo explains the allegations from the Manila protest.
Published On 30 Nov 202530 Nov 2025
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Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak confirms search, saying he has offered ‘full cooperation’.
Anticorruption authorities in Ukraine have searched the home of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, as a major corruption investigation continues to roil the country and cause consternation among allies.
Andriy Yermak, who leads Kyiv’s negotiating team concurrently trying to hash out the terms of a United States-proposed plan to end the four-year war with Russia, confirmed his apartment was being searched on Friday and said he was fully cooperating.
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“There are no obstacles for the investigators. They have been given full access to the apartment, and my lawyers are present on-site, cooperating with the law enforcement officers. From my side, there is full cooperation,” he said on social media.
In a joint statement, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said the searches were “authorised” and linked to an unspecified investigation.
Earlier this month, the two anticorruption agencies unveiled a sweeping investigation into an alleged $100m kickback scheme at the state atomic energy company that ensnared former senior officials and an ex-business partner of Zelenskyy.
Friday’s searches come as the Ukrainian president faces growing pressure from the administration of United States President Donald Trump to agree to Washington’s proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine and its European allies had raised concerns that the Trump-backed plan comprised some elements that Russia has been actively pushing for, including that Ukraine cede additional territory and curtail the size of its military.
But a revised proposal has been put forward, and Kyiv has said it is open to negotiations.
The searches are also likely to worsen tensions between Zelenskyy and his political opponents amid the peace negotiations.
In a statement on Thursday, the European Solidarity opposition party criticised Yermak’s role as a negotiator and called on Zelenskyy for “an honest dialogue” with other parties.
Viktor Shlinchak, a political analyst at the Kyiv-based Institute for World Politics, described the searches as a “Black Friday” for Yermak and suggested Zelenskyy may be forced to dismiss him.
“It looks like we may soon have a different head of the negotiating team,” he wrote on Facebook.
Yermak, 54, is Zelenskyy’s most important ally, but a divisive figure in Kyiv, where his opponents say he has accumulated power, gatekeeps access to the president and ruthlessly sidelines critical voices.
A former film producer and copyright lawyer, Yermak came into politics with Zelenskyy in 2019, previously working with him during the now-president’s time as a popular comedian.
He is widely considered the second-most influential man in the country and even sometimes nicknamed “vice president”.
The corruption investigation revolves around an alleged scheme involving Energoatom, the state-run nuclear power company that supplies more than half of the country’s electricity.
“That [case] has been swirling around Ukraine for several weeks now, rocking the government,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reported from Kyiv on Friday. “The allegation is that some $100m … has gone through a kind of laundromat,” he explained.
Anticorruption investigators have said they suspect that Tymur Mindich, a one-time business partner of Zelenskyy, was the plot’s mastermind.
Mindich has fled the country, with any criminal proceedings against him likely to be carried out in absentia. Two top ministers have also resigned over the scandal.
Challands also noted that the inquiry comes after Zelenskyy’s government had tried in July to take away the Ukrainian anticorruption agencies’ independence and place them under the control of his prosecutor-general.
But the Ukrainian leader backtracked after mass public protests.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have begun searching the apartment of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak.
One of the two agencies, anti-corruption bureau Nabu, confirmed that its investigative searches had been authorised and said further details would follow.
A corruption scandal has engulfed several figures close to Zelensky, though neither he nor his right-hand man Yermak have been accused of any wrongdoing.
Yermak has played a crucial role in Ukraine’s response to Russia’s full-scale war, and he is Kyiv’s lead negotiator in peace talks with the US. However, his position has become increasingly under threat from critics calling for him to go.
Yermak, 54, confirmed on social media that both Nabu and the specialised anti-corruption prosecutor’s office (Sapo) were “conducting procedural actions at my home” and had full access to his apartment, with his lawyers on site.
“From my side, there is full co-operation.”
The searches come at a very awkward moment for Zelensky and his chief of staff, with US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll due to arrive in Kyiv by the end of this week as US President Donald Trump pushes ahead with a draft peace plan. US officials are heading to Moscow next week.
One of the main sticking points for Ukraine is Russia’s demand for Ukraine to hand over the territory it still controls in the eastern Donetsk region. “If they don’t withdraw, we’ll achieve this by force of arms,” Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
Yermak underlined his leading role in the negotiations when he told The Atlantic website hours before news of the searches emerged that “as long as Zelensky is president, no-one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory”.
However, Putin has been emboldened by minor territorial gains by Russian forces, claiming their offensive “is practically impossible to hold back”. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s own position has been weakened by the domestic corruption scandal, and Russia’s president has long questioned his legitimacy as leader.
In his interview late on Thursday, Yermak acknowledged that pressure on him to stand down was “enormous… The case is fairly loud, and there needs to be an objective and independent investigation without political influence”.
The corruption scandal has rocked Ukraine this month, with investigators linking several leading public figures to an alleged $100m (£75m) embezzlement scandal in the energy sector.
The two anti-corruption agencies, Nabu and Sapo, said they had uncovered an extensive scheme to take kickbacks and influence state-owned companies including state nuclear energy firm Enerhoatom.
A number of suspects have already been charged in the scandal that has outraged public opinion because of allegations that money was diverted from key infrastructure projects vital for safeguarding Ukrainian power supplies.
Russian attacks have badly damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and Ukrainians across the country have had to cope with only a few hours of electricity a day.
Zelensky has already fired two ministers and several suspects have been detained in the scandal. One of the president’s former business associates, Timur Mindich, has fled the country.
He was co-owner of the TV studio where Zelensky’s acting career took off before he was elected president.
More than half a million Filipinos rallied in the capital Manila on Sunday to demand accountability for a government corruption scandal that has triggered a series of protests since August.
Sunday’s protest is part of a three-day rally organised by the Philippine sect Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ). The show of force on Sunday by the influential religious bloc, popularly referred to by its acronym INC, is a complete reversal from its support of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, whom it endorsed in the 2022 presidential race.
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Central to the ongoing protest is the church’s demand for a “proper and transparent” investigation into the alleged misuse of multibillion-dollar funds for flood control projects under Marcos’s watch.
But it also exposes the escalating fight for political power between Marcos and his former ally and running-mate, Vice President Sara Duterte, whom the religious group continues to support. Marcos and Duterte had a dramatic falling out just several months after their landslide victory.
The corruption scandal has only turbocharged the political feud between the country’s two highest elected leaders and turned into calls for Marcos’s removal before his term ends in 2028.
The removal movement is being led by supporters of Duterte as well as some elements of the INC and other groups. The INC insists it is not joining calls for Marcos’s removal, but the presence of its members on the streets of Manila means they are a formidable force to reckon with.
The outrage over so-called ghost infrastructure and flood control projects has been mounting in the Southeast Asian country since Marcos put the issue centre stage in a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding.
Government engineers, public works officials and construction company executives have testified under oath in Congressional hearings that members of Congress and public works officials took kickbacks from construction companies to help them win lucrative contracts by rigging the bidding process.
According to government data, the equivalent of $26bn was spent on flood control and mitigation programmes over the last 15 years. Of that amount, officials testified that at least 25 to 30 percent has been funnelled as kickbacks.
So far, the government has only managed to freeze $3bn in assets suspected of being linked to the huge bribery scheme.
A series of televised investigations and Congressional hearings detailing the alleged corruption further heightened public anger.
Many have criticised Marcos for acting too slowly to stop the corruption, if not for tolerating those deals carried out by his political allies, including his cousin, the once-powerful Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Last week, a former congressman and a deputy of Romualdez, who fled the country after being implicated over millions of dollars in missing infrastructure funds, released a video claiming Marcos himself was involved, something the administration has derided as “wild speculation”.
Sunday’s protests come on the heels of two powerful typhoons that left more than 250 people dead, many due to flooding and failed flood control infrastructure.
They also come just days after Marcos promised arrests in the corruption case before Christmas.
The INC, which claims nearly three million members, was founded in 1914 in the Philippines by Felix Manalo, a former devout Catholic and Methodist convert.
In comparison, the predominant Catholic Church has an estimated 86 million followers.
Unlike mainstream religious groups, which adhere to the principle of the division of church and state, the INC endorses candidates during elections and encourages its members to vote as a bloc, making it a potent political force.
In 2022, it endorsed the Marcos-Duterte tandem during the elections. In 2016, its leadership also endorsed Rodrigo Duterte before his win.
When the Marcos-Duterte alliance broke up, the INC sided with Duterte.
In January this year, the INC held a huge rally in Manila opposing Vice President Duterte’s impeachment, which was seen as having the silent endorsement of Marcos.
During the almost 20-year rule of Marcos’s father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, the INC was also seen as a supporter of his presidency.
Despite their political differences, Marcos declared a special non-working holiday to celebrate the INC’s 111th founding anniversary on July 27, 2025, demonstrating what observers point to as the group’s enormous political clout.
“The influential Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) is not missing a beat,” political analyst Alex Magno wrote in a recent column in the Philippine Star newspaper.
The INC-led protest, which has been scheduled for three days from Sunday, November 16 to Tuesday, November 18, is demanding “proper and transparent” investigation of the corruption scandal and “better democracy”.
“A lot of people are getting flooded because of the corruption, and as a result people are dying,” Edwina Kamatoy, one of the protesters, told Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo, who is reporting from Manila.
Aries Cortez, another protester, complained that the government investigation so far is being selective and “is not going anywhere”.
The protest is being held at the Quirino Grandstand by the Manila Bay in the Philippine capital.
As of 08:00 GMT on Monday, the second day of the protest, an estimated 300,000 protesters have gathered at the park, according to the Manila risk reduction and management office.
On Sunday, the Philippine National Police said they are deploying at least 15,000 personnel throughout the duration of the protest.
The protesters say they are not demanding the ouster of Marcos. But many in their ranks have openly expressed their disdain for the Marcos presidency, particularly after the ICC arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
About 2,000 people, including retired generals, held a separate anticorruption protest late on Sunday at the “People Power” monument in suburban Quezon City.
The smaller group of protesters, many of whom are identified as Duterte supporters, are calling for the outright resignation of Marcos from the presidency.
According to the police, up to 30,000 anti-Marcos protesters are expected at the site on Monday afternoon. But as of 08:00 GMT on Monday, only 3,000 protesters have showed up, according to News 5 television channel.
The centre-left political bloc and their civic and religious allies have pointedly skipped the rally, wary that it would only lead to the return of Duterte to power.
On Sunday, they held a separate “Run Against Corruption” protest at the University of the Philippines. Their group have also been staging smaller marches every Friday.
The previous protest in September, which also attracted hundreds of thousands of protesters, was mainly led by that centre-left bloc that called itself the “Trillion Peso March Movement”.
A separate and smaller group of protesters also managed to stage its own march near the presidential palace that day, leading to a violent police crackdown that resulted in at least one death, several injuries and dozens of arrests.
In recent days, the Catholic Church has also issued a statement calling for transparency in government, but warned against “unconstitutional” means to achieve justice.
In a radio interview on Monday, Presidential Spokesman Dave Gomez dismissed as “a very small group” those who want Marcos to be kicked out of office, adding that those calling for the president’s resignation are likely to be implicated in the ongoing probe.
Gomez also said the government is monitoring people who are seeking to destabilise it.
He dismissed the recent allegations of former Congressman Zaldy Co, who directly implicated the president in the bribery case.
“As the president said, he will not even dignify the accusations,” Gomez added, pointing to the “numerous loopholes” in them.
Late on Monday, the Palace announced that Marcos’s executive secretary and budget secretary had resigned, after both officials were accused of having links to the bribery scandal.
While Filipinos are united in anger towards the Marcos administration, they are sharply divided on the calls for the president’s removal.
Some are wary that a takeover by Vice President Sara Duterte would not lead to any substantive change, given that she is also facing allegations of corruption.
A wide philosophical disparity between the two opposition forces, however, has prevented them from uniting against Marcos. More often, the centre-left bloc has emerged as fiercely more anti-Duterte than anti-Marcos, putting them in a sometimes awkward political position.
In a statement before the INC-led protest, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr also made it clear that the military will not support any efforts to subvert the constitution, making Marcos’s removal from office unlikely.
Meanwhile, the so-called Trillion Peso March Movement, which organised the September 21 anticorruption rally in Manila, has announced that it will hold its own rally on November 30.
The group said it aims to “transform a prayer rally into a movement” for the prosecution of all those involved in the ongoing corruption scandal.
The group is seen as a defender of the 1987 Constitution that helped pave the way for the restoration of democracy in the country of more than 110 million people.
Ukranian president promises accountability after anticorruption bureau announces probe into alleged Energoatom scheme.
Ukraine’s anticorruption agency has launched an investigation into an alleged $100m kickback scheme involving Energoatom, the state-run nuclear power company that supplies more than half of the country’s electricity.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which operates independently of the government, announced the probe on Monday as the country faces another harsh winter under daily Russian bombardment.
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In a statement posted on social media, NABU said that a “high-level criminal organisation” orchestrated the alleged scheme, led by a businessman and involving a former adviser to the energy minister, Energoatom’s head of security, and four other employees.
“In total, approximately 100 million USD passed through this so-called laundromat,” NABU said, without naming the suspects.
“The minister’s adviser and the director of security at Energoatom took control of all the company’s purchases and created conditions under which all contractors had to pay illegal benefits,” according to NABU chief detective Oleksandr Abakumov.
He said the group discussed increasing the kickback rate during work on protective structures at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear plant last October.
Investigators said Energoatom’s contractors were forced to pay bribes of 10 to 15 percent to avoid losing contracts or facing payment delays.
“A strategic enterprise with annual income exceeding 200 billion hryvnias [$4.7bn] was managed not by authorised officials but by individuals with no formal authority,” NABU said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, addressing the nation on Monday evening, urged full cooperation with the investigation. “Everyone who has been involved in corruption schemes must receive a clear legal response. There must be criminal verdicts,” he said.
Zelenskyy’s comments come just months after he was forced to reverse plans to curb the agency’s independence following widespread protests. Eradicating corruption remains a crucial condition for Ukraine’s European Union membership bid, a goal Kyiv views as central to its post-war future.
Energoatom confirmed on social media that its offices were being searched and said it was cooperating with investigators.
Deputy Minister of Energy of Ukraine Svitlana Grynchuk told reporters she was not yet familiar with the case details, but promised a “transparent process” and accountability for anyone found guilty. “I hope that the transparency of the investigation will reassure our international partners,” she said.
Ukraine’s power infrastructure has suffered extensive damage from Russia’s air strikes this autumn, leaving large parts of the country without electricity. Although Moscow has not targeted nuclear reactors directly, Ukrainian authorities say substations linked to them have been repeatedly hit.
NABU released photographs showing stacks of cash, Ukrainian hryvnias, US dollars and euros, stuffed into bags and piled on tables. The agency did not disclose the owners of the seized money.
The agency conducted 70 searches, reviewed more than 1,000 hours of audio recordings, and deployed its entire detective staff over 15 months.
Opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a strong supporter of anticorruption reform, said he would introduce a parliamentary motion to dismiss Grynchuk and her predecessor, German Galushchenko, now serving as justice minister. Hrynchuk declined to comment on the proposal, while Galushchenko did not respond to requests for comment.
As Ukraine continues to battle both corruption and Russia’s war, Kyiv’s ability to convince its international partners of reform may prove as critical to its future as the fighting on the front lines.