Book Review: Some People Need Killing, by Patricia Evangelista

'A Memoir of Murder in My Country'

The lure of violence is undeniable. The world is a fucked up place full of crime and treachery, and all sorts of people who have crossed one line or another. It's often tempting to think that some surgically applied violence could make the planet a better place. But who gets to decide who the bad guys are? If absolute power corrupts absolutely, who should wield the power of death?

Just three decades after a peaceful democratic revolution had ousted a dictator in the Philippines, a strongman from a privileged background fomented a typhoon of public animosity and rode it into the national palace. His name was Rodrigo Duterte and he promised to rid his country of evil within six months. Instead, he started a campaign of domestic terror that killed thousands of people—mothers and sons and gangsters, and at least one seven-year-old girl.

Duterte's rise to power and the ‘war on drugs’ he unleashed are a case study in the vulnerabilities of democracy in the modern world. How easily we give up our freedoms for the pettiest lies. How quickly we relinquish reason to hate almost any common enemy. How stubbornly we believe only what confirms our chosen worldview. Lurking underneath all of this is the dark side of social media.

When an aspiring dictator sweeps the popular vote, he has very few natural predators once in office. But Duterte found an adversary in dedicated journalists like Patricia Evangelista, one of many reporters who documented the violence that unfolded under his regime. Evangelista went to hundreds of midnight crime scenes. She interviewed police chiefs, vigilantes, Duterte supporters, and family members of victims. She sat on the floors of cramped homes with a microphone, listening to the trauma of Duterte’s war.

Duterte tapped into the discontent of the masses, focused it on the specter of meth-addicts and criminals, and whipped it into a fury at his rallies and online. His followers spread the gospel of national salvation through murder on social media. He created a national bloodsport in which cops, former communist guerrillas, and a few 'reformed' criminals became gladiators with a license to kill. And he did it all from within the walled garden of democracy.

One of the few counterweights to the abuse of power is gritty, detail-oriented journalism for the public good. It mostly isn't sexy work, and in some cases it can be grueling and dangerous. It’s also the lifeblood of democracy. Some People Need Killing is a monument to that kind of reporting, and a gracefully told story of heroism, loss, and humanity. In an era of chaos and insanity, books like Evangelista’s are a desperately needed antidote.