Some People Need Killing

A Memoir of Murder in My Country

By: Patricia Evangelista

Narrated by: 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 • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE AND THE MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING • 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

Critic reviews

“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

Courageus Patricia

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

Great book

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

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.

A very brave and informative story

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

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.

Moving and Informative

Evangelista explains the political system in the Philippines both historically and contemporarily as well as the societal structures that shape the people and players of that system. She intertwines individual lives and emotions of those impacted by the politics in the Philippines quite powerfully.

Insight into the cost of fixing a big problem...

and the moral quandrum that one must face in its execution. As I have listened to this book I've looked up YouTube articles about Duterte and the Philippines. People there still largely love the man for what he did. It's crazy to think that over reach and abuse of power is still more tolerable than the rot and decay drug and drug dealers bring to a society.

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.

Felt like a missed opportunity

While providing good insight into the background and execution of the Philippine’s drug war and how it affected its victims, it felt as if the book did not want to delve to deep into why Duterte was popular and still popular among such a large segment of the Philippine society. The intended audience of this book likely already believes the breakdown of due process is problematic and that these victims, whatever their faults, were all humans and didn’t need convincing. The few personal stories of how people finding themselves supporting Duterte felt shallow and incomplete, and it seemed as if they were all people who came to regret it. The missed opportunity is the coverage of those who still support this breakdown in justice and how such a large population came to support it and still do without regret