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Crissa Tolentino has long been resigned to floods as a way of life.

The local resident takes a paddle boat through waterlogged streets on a regular basis. It's the sole method to move from her residence in the outskirts to the main part of this flood-prone community near Manila.

This vessel transports her to work, and to the medical facility where she is undergoing therapy for a serious illness. She notes she experiences dry streets for a brief period in the year.

Yet currently she is very angry.

An unusually fierce monsoon has derailed daily life like never before in the South East Asian nation, and provoked anger and claims about misconduct in infrastructure initiatives.

Downpours have trapped countless people during travel, caused vehicles to drift in roads that have become rivers and led to outbreaks of a waterborne disease, an illness affecting the liver that spreads through the excrement of pests.

"I feel let down," she says. "I labor diligently, I don't spend too much and levies are deducted from my salary every month. Then I learn that billions in our taxes are used personally by corrupt politicians."

This accusation echoing nationwide, where citizens are demanding why the authorities cannot control the high water with the large sums of public money it pours into construction like roads, viaducts and flood barriers.

Frustration is evident on social media, Facebook and X, where they are venting toward officials and business magnates who they claim win contracts for nonexistent projects that fail to appear.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr publicly admitted this as a persistent problem on a visit to inspect a barrier that he then discovered did not exist. The minister later said corruption had taken the majority of taxpayer resources earmarked for flood control.

A senior lawmaker, who has been associated, has stepped down, although he rejects any impropriety. And the leader of the legislative body has been removed after it was discovered that a firm who won a state project was found to have contributed money to his 2022 campaign, which is illegal.

Frustrated Filipinos have been creating AI videos of lawmakers as symbols of greed, a emblem of avarice. Much the ire is also aimed at children of privilege, the offspring of influential politicians or contractors, whose lavish lives are prominent on social media.

Looking through her social media, she says she connects deeply with a rap song from 2009 which has become the theme to the widespread anger.

This song, by recording artist Gloc-9, asks why leaders are fail to empathise with ordinary people. The song's title means position in Filipino, and it captures the anger at those with parliamentary seats who seem disconnected from the lives of everyday Filipinos.

"The track is the truth," the resident says. "It sums it up."

A major anti-corruption protest is already set for a September date—the observance of the day in that year when then leader Ferdinand Marcos declared authoritarian control.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who is now leading the country—Bongbong Marcos—is well aware of how far public anger can go. Historically, public demonstrations that forced his father from power in 1986, ending a decades-long dictatorship that stole billions from the state.

More recently, public outcry forced governmental adjustments in Indonesia and, only days ago, overthrew the government in Nepal. And so on Monday, as Filipinos called for an explanation, he announced an inquiry that would "reveal the cheats and find out how much they stole."

"If I wasn't president, I might be joining the protests with them," he told reporters.

"Let them know how much they wronged you, how they took from you. Let them know, express your anger, rally—just make it peaceful."

This mirrored prior remarks when he promised relief from the floods while seeming to pin the fault elsewhere. He blamed unethical leaders and contractors for the severe lack of infrastructure: "Shame on you," he said.

Later in a public statement he said he had discovered a "alarming" fact: the infrastructure agency had engaged only a small number of companies to build flood control projects worth a massive sum ($£7.1bn).

The firms are now under investigation and the monetary institution has frozen their accounts, but the most attention has gone to one family-owned business. It is owned by Pacifico and Sarah Discaya, who were from poor families but are now a prosperous, high-flying couple visible on social media. Before the floods controversy, she was best known for her campaign to become mayor of a urban area.

In the past year the couple were profiled on online shows, where they shared their rags-to-riches story. The presenter described it as "motivating". But following the disastrous flooding, those videos have gained renewed attention as subjects of anger.

They show the couple flaunting their numerous luxury cars, including a premium automobile, a Lincoln Navigator and a sports utility vehicle. They bought some models in contrasting hues, black and white.

The backlash was swift. They were called by the legislative bodies for hearings, and authorities barred their firm, while activists defaced the gates to their office with filth and marked the word "thief".

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