Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country

An investigative reporter in the Philippines, Evangelista presents a chilling exposé of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s infamous campaign to stop the drug trade. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out in strongman Duterte’s war on drugs during his violent rule from 2016 through 2022. Duterte’s brutal approach boiled down to advocating for the extrajudicial execution of anyone associated with the drug trade, including motivating the general public to kill drug users without due process. Evangelista chronicles how Duterte’s police and civilian vigilantes indiscriminately slaughtered over 7,000 people, including the families and even children of drug users. Her interviews with the killers and survivors vividly portray the terrifying atmosphere that ensued after Duterte decreed that some lives are worth less than others. Narrator Corey Wilson’s sober conveying of these firsthand accounts of nationwide torture and bloodletting eschews hyperbole and lets Evangelista’s horrifying narrative tell itself. Wilson also makes the author’s grief and emotional connection to this tragedy heard. Evangelista risked her life to cover the atrocities, and her efforts caused the shutdown of her news organization.