Murder, She Wrote

Patricia Evangelista's "Some People Need Killing"

Camping flex, at the Crooked River OR.

Murder Book Club is in session.

I’m very excited/terrified by this book. The name should tell you why: “Some People Need Killing” is about the assassination campaign waged by the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, against his own people. Duterte, an emblematic authoritarian of our age, vowed to kill all the criminals in his country if elected. He won. So he did it, sponsoring, encouraging, and directing a substantial campaign of murder by his sympathizers—mostly within law enforcement, the military, and allies. Tens of thousand of petty criminals, mostly impoverished addicts to methamphetamines, were shot dead, usually at night in mysterious circumstances.

I covered this for the New York Times. Patricia Evangelista was my tutor and advisor about doing so. She was the courageous and unflappable correspondent for Rappler, an all-digital news site that challenged Duterte and refused to stop looking as he conducted the murders. I followed her up dark alleys to bloody murder scenes in Quezon City, downtown Manila, and random spots. I learned from her example how to appear calm and continue functioning as a journalist in the midst of sickening scenes. I dwelt in that world of nocturnal massacres for three weeks; here at last is Evangelista’s chilling book on what happened over the six years of the Duterte presidency.

I’m only a few pages into it—more reviews later—but I am deeply disturbed. I will spare you more details right now, as my toes curl and my stomach aches merely thinking about all those nights.

And I will confess to some literary trepidation as well. My forthcoming book, The Black Pill, includes a massive chapter on the killings in the Philippines and their root in authoritarian politics. I’m both jealous of and humbled by Evangelista’s work, and wonder how my own will stand up to her comprehensive view.

So I’m going to post my reactions live, as I go through the book, as if we were in a book club together. Stand by for more reactions to this particularly violent version of political authoritarianism, and what it says about us.