First published 2023
Patricia Evangelista witnessed the Philippines transform from a nation born of street revolution into something darker under Rodrigo Duterte's presidency. For six years, she documented the systematic killings that defined Duterte's drug war. Police and vigilantes murdered thousands of citizens in the name of law and order. Evangelista traveled to crime scenes, interviewed survivors, and spoke with the killers themselves. She captured how fear spread through communities when an elected leader declared certain lives worthless. The book takes its name from one vigilante's chilling justification: "I'm really not a bad guy. Some people need killing." Evangelista shows how a democracy can slide toward autocracy, how violence becomes normalized, and how people adapt to horror. Her reporting reveals both the mechanics of state-sanctioned murder and the human cost of authoritarian rule in a country where inequality and desperation made brutal solutions seem acceptable to many.
Genres: political-science, crime, non-fiction, 21st-century, journalism, activism
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: dark-academia, gritty, intimate
Setting: Philippines
Period: 21st-century
428 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, murder, violence