For six years, Evangelista had the distinctive beat of chronicling the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs – a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands – immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others. Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines’ drug war and Duterte’s assault on the country’s struggling democracy.
