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SOME PEOPLE NEED KILLING

Patricia Evangelista

A Memoir of Murder in My Country

A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into a violent autocracy - told through harrowing stories of the Philippines' state-sanctioned killings of its citizens - from a leading journalist of international renown.

Patricia Evangelista is a thirty-eight-year-old writer and journalist in Manila. She was born in 1985, five months before the dictator Ferdinand Marcos fell.

During the recent reign of terror of President Rodrigo Duterte, Evangelista has worked a distinctive and lonely beat that was perhaps at once the worst and most vital job in all of journalism: To chronicle the tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings ordered by Duterte in the name of fighting a drug war to capture the atmosphere of fear that comes when an elected president claims powers well beyond those granted to him and to record the real-time collapse of the democracy in her country.

In SOME PEOPLE NEED KILLING, Evangelista's towering and monumental book on the life and death of Philippine democracy, the Rappler's "trauma reporter" (as she describes herself) writes a book for the ages.

In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuscinski, Joan Didion, and Philip Gourevitch, Evangelista recounts a life and career of braving all consequences to bear witness in her country and - in this era of global autocratic resurgence - reveal essential truths about power, and of how people can willingly surrender their sovereignty to a strongman who runs for office on a platform of taking away their rights.

As the greatest journalists have always done, Evangelista immerses herself in this dark world of killers, and their victims: A vigilante named Simon who she met in a hotel room, reflected what seems to be the psychological accommodation that most of the country had made and gave her the title for this book - "I'm really not a bad guy," he said. "I'm not all bad. Some people need killing."

But Evangelista does something else, too. With a magisterial scope, and in a deeply personal voice, she tells the full benighted story of how it all came to this. The social history of a failed democracy that is only as old as she is, and of her own family's complicity in the Marcos dictatorship, only now seems a clear harbinger of the tragic present.

Evangelista has written a book that is both definitive of this moment and a demonstration to all democracies on earth, that deadlocked and corrupt politics, riven by untended ethnic, racial, and class strife, will give way to something even worse.

Writing like this has seldom been so beautiful and a book that is so needed to read now with the current world events, this is literary journalism and personal history with investigative reportage, at its best.

Patricia Evangelista is a trauma journalist and former investigative reporter for Philippine news company Rappler. Her reporting on armed conflict and the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan was awarded the Kate Webb Prize for exceptional journalism in dangerous conditions. She was a Headlands Artist in Residence, a recipient of the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and a fellow of the John Logan Nonfiction Program, the Marshall McLuhan Fellowship, the De La Salle University Democracy Discourse Series, the New America Fellows Program, and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Her work investigating President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war has earned several local and international accolades. She lives in Manila.

Translation rights: Random House Inc./PRH
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Published by Random House

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Published 2023-10-17 by Random House

Comments

Tragic, elegant, vital. She risked her life to tell this story.

quote Tara Westover, New York Times bestselling author of Educated

Analytical, ambitious, and told with empathy, this will stand as a definitive historical account of the Philippines' drug war.

review Booklist, starred review

It is a cliché to compare such writers to George Orwell or, more lately, with justice, Martha Gellhorn. But, if the shoe fits... Recently, a Filipina reporter named Patricia Evangelista came by the office, for an interview... Our topic was her new book, "Some People Need Killing," about the reign of Rodrigo Duterte. It is hardly written with Orwellian cool, but it stands next to "Homage to Catalonia." Evangelista's title comes from a vigilante, whose offhand comment to her exemplified the bloodiness of the Duterte Presidency and its extralegal drug wars. Evangelista covered the killings, which left thousands dead, for the independent news platform Rappler. Now, in "Some People Need Killing," she has written a journalistic masterpiece. She is a very rare talent... Read more...

quote The New Yorker

In this shattering debut, Filipina journalist Evangelista interviews detainees, families, and key government officials to illuminate the Philippines' brutal war on drugs. With rigorous reporting, Evangelista painstakingly lays out how Duterte gathered political power and convinced his constituents to support the slaughter. Most chillingly, she speaks to several ardent Duterte followers and allies who've come to regret their support for the ex-president, who left office in 2022. The result is an astonishing and frightening exposé that won't soon be forgotten.

quote Publishers Weekly, starred review

In December 2021, as her publisher Maria Ressa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to The Rappler, the online newspaper they both worked for, Evangelista was in Oslo as well, and was asked to speak by the Nobel organization. Here is that speech and we recommend that you watch -- it says so much about who Patricia Evangelista is Read more...

quote Facebook

Heartbreaking personal stories underscore the consequences of a government-incited extrajudicial rampage.

review Kirkus

UK: Atlantic UK

quote Random House

"It is a cliché to compare such writers to George Orwell or, more lately, with justice, Martha Gellhorn. But, if the shoe fits . . . Recently, a Filipina reporter named Patricia Evangelista came by the office, for an interview.. Our topic was her new book, "Some People Need Killing," about the reign of Rodrigo Duterte. It is hardly written with Orwellian cool, but it stands next to "Homage to Catalonia." Evangelista's title comes from a vigilante, whose offhand comment to her exemplified the bloodiness of the Duterte Presidency and its extralegal drug wars. Evangelista covered the killings, which left thousands dead, for the independent news platform Rappler. Now, in "Some People Need Killing," she has written a journalistic masterpiece. She is a very rare talent.."

review The New Yorker

The story of what has happened in the Philippines is the story of what is happening in the wider world, as people turn to autocracy lured by the false promise of security and belonging. Some People Need Killing is a beautiful, gripping and essential book that paints a picture of how autocracy takes root. Through dogged reporting, extraordinary courage and exquisite storytelling, Patricia Evangelista has written one of those books that is both definitive on its subject while transcending it. Read this book to understand the times we are living in, and to be inspired by Evangelista's relentless insistence on uncovering the truth and revealing our common humanity.

quote Ben Rhodes, author AFTER THE FALL

In this haunting work of memoir and reportage, Patricia Evangelista both describes the origins of autocratic rule in the Philippines, and explains its universal significance. The cynicism of voters; the opportunism of Filipino politicians; the appeal of brutality and violence to both groups; all of this will be familiar to readers, wherever they are from.

quote Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Patricia Evangelista exposes the evil in her country with perfect clarity fueled by profound rage, her voice at one utterly beautiful and terrifyingly vulnerable.... Few of history's grimmest chapters have had the fortune to be narrated by such a withering, ironic, witty, devastatingly brilliant observer. You may think you are inured to shock, but this book is an exploding bomb that will damage you anew, making you wiser as it does so.

quote Andrew Solomon