Some People Need Killing

A Memoir of Murder in My Country

De: Patricia Evangelista

Narrado por: Patricia Evangelista

TIME’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Patricia Evangelista’s searing account is not only the definitive chronicle of a reign of terror in the Philippines, but a warning to the rest of the world about the true dangers of despotism—its nightmarish consequences and its terrible human cost.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain

“Tragic, elegant, vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story.”—Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated

“A journalistic masterpiece”—David Remnick, The New Yorker

For six years, journalist Patricia Evangelista documented killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of then president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs—a crusade that led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of terror created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.

The book takes its title from the words of a vigilante, which demonstrated the psychological accommodation many across the country had made: “I’m really not a bad guy,” he said. “I’m not all bad. Some people need killing.”

A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an investigation into the human impulses to dominate and resist.

WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY’S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE AND THE MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library, CrimeReads, The Mary Sue

©2023 Patricia Maria Susanah Chanco Evangelista (P)2024 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A journalistic masterpiece . . . One of the most remarkable pieces of narrative nonfiction I have read in a long, long time.”—David Remnick, The New Yorker

“Evangelista makes us feel the fear and grief that she felt as she chronicled what Duterte was doing to her country. But appealing to our emotions is only part of it; what makes this book so striking is that she wants us to think about what happened, too. She pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer. Language can be used to communicate, to deny, to threaten, to cajole. Duterte’s language is coarse and degrading. Evangelista’s is evocative and exacting.”—The New York Times

“Riveting . . . Evangelista’s book is an extraordinary testament to half a decade of state-sanctioned terror. It’s also a timely warning for the state of democracy.”—The Atlantic

Great book

Interesting subject matter, well written. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about that era in the Philipines.

Brilliant!

Fascinatingly eerie, unbelievably palpable, brilliantly written and wonderfully narrated by author - Patricia Evangelista! And it’s all true. Thank you Ms. Evangelista for writing a magnificent book honoring the people who were killed, for consoling and mourning and at the same time giving a voice and celebrating the lives of the families, friends and bystanders who witnessed the atrocities under the rule of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
If anything, I hope we learn from your book to choose our future leaders a lot wiser.
The best book I’ve read in years.
Unforgettable!

A very brave and informative story

I highly recommend as a read especially to the younger Filipino generation. This is very enlightening

What I hope stays in the past.

Excellent account of the drug wars in the Philippines before, during, and after the Duterte years as president (2016-2022). He created a local form of crime-stopping as Mayor of Davao City, later, as president, expanded it nationally, and later, belatedly, spawned a corrupt police force acting in his spirit but without his endorsement.

A Modern Tale of Government Endorsed Violence

Now I had long heard of the Phillipines’ Rodrigo Duterte, but only really known him as a “Trump-esque” type of political figure. One of the political leaders who likes to play off of machismo and the “peoples president” calling card where they shoot from the hip and give down to earth, strongman rebuttals in lieu of the typical milquetoast, cookie cutter political comments. However, this book shook me to the core to what this man really had transpire in his country, under his leadership. Ms. Evangelista tells a chilling tale of the lawless vigilantism encouraged under President Duterte, targeted at drug users and sellers. While I won’t argue that the use of illicit drugs shouldn’t have consequences, but extrajudicial executions by slack jaw beat cops and even posses of pissed of locals does not appear to be the answer to an addiction crisis. The gusto in which an acting, elected, head of state in the year 2016 calls for blood letting of his own people just seems so fictitious, but it actually happened! I really would recommend this book to just about anyone.

Her lilting voice and way she reads

What an amazing story told through a multitude of people about how easy it is to lose one’s humanity so quickly especially with a mildly charismatic leader. Evil man that Duderte was

Courageus Patricia

Deserves a Palanca, no, a Pullitzwer prize. What a courageous journalist. May her teibe exist.

This book continues to haunt me.

Like any transplant living in another country, I have viewed the goings-on in the Philippines from a distance. I heard bits of news, from news media, comments from friends and relatives, acquaintances. Every so often, I read entire articles in some international news publication.

I thought I’d try to understand more why an ill-prepared unqualified autocrat would win to run a country. After all, we’re about to enter into yet repeat of one over here. The author had her answers, her rationale. And, as in anywhere in the earth, people vote the candidates into office for the most naive, inane, arbitrary, unrealistic reasons. Or sometimes, for no particular reason. And so, the country gets the leader it deserves.

But then, there’s the amplification of falsehoods, the steering of the conversation to favor carefully crafted narratives that tug at the heartstrings. So effective that one wonders why the better team does not adapt.

Justice is coming

Today is a good day. March 11, 2025. Rodrigo Duterte has finally been arrested, the fall out of the clash between the Marcos and Duterte clans. He will face the judgment of the International Criminal Court for the crimes detailed in Patricia Evangelist's powerful book. May justice prevail.

A courageous mission

Thank god for journalists who have the courage & means to tell their stories in long form, while at the same time it’s so appalling that this is what it takes for those stories to be heard.