Patricia Evangelista: "One of them told me: 'I'm not a bad person, it's just that someone should kill them.'"

BarcelonaPatricia Evangelista defines herself as a "trauma journalist," who has learned to investigate violent deaths while trying not to contribute to the trauma of the victims' families. As a journalist Rappler, the online media outlet founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria RessaEvangelista investigated dozens of murders committed during the war on drugs. of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which left at least 6,000 dead, according to official data. Someone must kill them (Comanegra), full of brutal and meticulously contrasted stories, could be presented as damning evidence in the trial against Duterte, which is Detained in The Hague, accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC)The first translation offer for her book (originally in English) she received anywhere in the world was from Comanegra, who wanted to publish it in Catalan. Evangelista is now in Barcelona as the CCCB's fourth international resident, a project carried out in collaboration with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and the Mir-Puig Private Foundation.

This week, Rodrigo Duterte won the Davao City mayoral election from prison in The Hague.

— Duterte still has a lot of support in the Philippines and enormous influence. Also elected as senators in these midterm elections were President Duterte's former aide, who was the party's top candidate, and the third-place candidate, the former police chief during Duterte's presidency—the architect of the war on drugs. Therefore, if these elections are considered a referendum, the people did not vote against Rodrigo Duterte.

How can it be explained that so many people still support him after 6,000 deaths (30,000 according to NGOs)?

— There are many different reasons. Many people still believe in his story from 2016, when he ran for president and embraced all the fears, uncertainties, and grievances of the Philippines, fueled by decades of unhappiness, inequality, and poverty. He blamed the people responsible for the disaster the Philippines was in, and he would kill to destroy it. because he himself had done it when he was mayorWithout bureaucracy, he would put an end to the next day. He didn't just tell a story, he was the story, he personified it.

Was his arrest in Manila expected?

— It was a big surprise. I found out the day before that this possibility existed, but I dismissed it.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered his arrest because the political alliance between the two had collapsed. Why did it collapse?

— The Marcoses and the Dutertes ran together in the elections, but there's obviously a power struggle. President Marcos is the son of our former dictator. Vice President Sara Duterte is the daughter of our former autocrat. During the campaign, both gave populist speeches and made many promises to the most vulnerable and poor. They both tell a good story. But there wasn't much that united them beyond their desire to win the elections.

Do they tell the same story?

— They tell different stories. It seems the country is less violent because Rodrigo Duterte resigned.

What happens to the survivors of this war now that Duterte is gone?

— I don't think Duterte ever truly left the country. He may no longer be president, but his legacy will remain. The Philippines will face generations of trauma after that. the children who saw their parents murdered, or the children who saw the bodies in the street or who saw it on television, and who were told that this is how justice is served. It will take a long time to deal with this legacy.

You've interviewed many victims and family members. What pattern did you find in the murders?

— When you get a call, there's a dead body. It could be a drive-by shooting. Often, they didn't even rush to flee because there was so much impunity. In other cases, they'd kill someone in one place and dump their body somewhere else. Sometimes it was a police operation in which it was claimed to be a legitimate death because the person had fought back. Others were killed by guards, men paid by the police, or as the police reports say: "unknown armed men." Other times it was a wild, as we used to call it when a person is tortured and left on the ground with their head wrapped in duct tape, their hands tied, their feet bound, and a sign next to them that reads "Drug dealer, don't follow in my footsteps." They are murders that serve as an example to the public.

Who were the dead?

— The targets of the murders were drug dealers and drug users, including marijuana users, but lawyers, activists, journalists, and others were also killed. Not to mention the children who died in the crossfire.

Has this stopped now with President Marcos?

— No, it hasn't stopped completely. There are still suspected addicts and alleged criminals being murdered. There's still impunity, and journalists are also being murdered. It's just not as public as it was in the war on drugs.

He also interviewed vigilantes. How does a normal person become a murderer?

— There are some people who kill for money and because they don't really see the dead as people. But there are those who consider it a crusade. I've interviewed both types. One told me he was a good person, that he went to church, had a family... I asked him how he felt about killing, and he said it was "like drug addiction: first you're scared, but then you're okay." "Why do you kill?" I asked him. "I'm not a bad person," he said, "it's just that someone has to kill them."some people need killing).

This normalization of violence is what Duterte achieved with his story.

— Yes, it's the grammar of violence, what happens when autocrats call for war against someone and say those people aren't human. The Philippines isn't an isolated case; it can happen anywhere in the world. An autocrat's language is dramatic, and it's easy to substitute the direct object of the sentence. You can change the name of a drug addict to a criminal, an immigrant, a journalist, or an activist, and then say it's okay to kill them, that they deserve to die because they're not human.

Explain, how have you done it in your articles and now in this book, can you change things?

— The job of journalism is to remind people that for every man killed, his family, his community, is killed, and that passes from generation to generation. But I think you can't do that kind of journalism if you have expectations of change. My job is to keep a record, because it's important to keep a record of the facts. It's about honoring the stories of those who have dared to tell them, because they are the ones who decided to do so. To give them hope that this matters to other people. But I don't believe what I do saves lives or changes politics. Because if I believed that, I would have quit my job by now.

Do you expect the ICC to deliver justice?

— Duterte will have a fair trial in The Hague. The people who were massacred by the police didn't have a fair trial. Many people have spent years trying to prove that their husbands, sons, or brothers were human, which you're not supposed to have to prove. They've had to say things like, "My husband made me coffee every morning." Now I hope the truth is heard [in The Hague]. I hope for the possibility of accountability.