📖 Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista (Book Summary & Key Takeaways)

Patricia Evangelista’s Some People Need Killing is one of the most important works of reportage to emerge from Southeast Asia in the last decade. It is a memoir of a journalist who spent years documenting the Philippine drug war - a state‑sanctioned campaign that left thousands dead. But it is also a book about memory, complicity, trauma, and the stories a nation tells itself to survive.

PART I - ORIGINS OF A WITNESS

Chapter 1 - A Childhood in a Country of Stories

Evangelista begins by situating herself in a Philippines shaped by myth, rumor, and political folklore. She grows up hearing stories of ghosts, rebels, and dictators - narratives that blur the line between truth and imagination. These early experiences teach her that stories are not entertainment; they are instruments of power.

She recalls how fear was woven into daily life: fear of the dark, fear of authority, fear of speaking too loudly. These childhood memories become the emotional foundation for her later work as a trauma reporter. She learns early that stories can justify cruelty or inspire courage - and that silence is never neutral.

Chapter 2 - Becoming a Reporter: Learning to Listen

Evangelista enters journalism with a belief that truth is something you chase. But she quickly learns that truth is something you sit with - often in uncomfortable places. She describes her early assignments: interviewing grieving families, covering disasters, and learning to listen without judgment.

She discovers that people tell the truth differently: some whisper, some shout, some speak in metaphors. Her job is not to interrogate but to witness. This chapter establishes her ethos: the reporter is not the hero; the reporter is the vessel.

Chapter 3 - The Making of a Strongman

Before the killings begin, Evangelista traces the rise of Rodrigo Duterte. She recounts his years as mayor of Davao City, where he cultivated a reputation as a man who could “clean up” crime through extrajudicial means. His speeches - crude, violent, magnetic - resonate with a public exhausted by corruption and insecurity.

The chapter ends with the 2016 election, when Duterte’s promise to “kill all drug addicts” becomes a national mandate. Evangelista senses that the country is on the brink of something irreversible.

PART II - THE YEARS OF BLOOD

Chapter 4 - The First Nights of Death

The drug war begins almost immediately after Duterte takes office. Evangelista describes her first nights on the job: racing from one crime scene to another, the smell of gunpowder still in the air, police officers casually smoking beside bodies.

She notices patterns:

• The cardboard signs labeling victims as “pushers.”
• The identical bullet wounds.
• The masked men who vanish into the night.

These are not random killings. They are a system.

Chapter 5 - Inside the Police Narrative

Evangelista embeds with police officers who insist they are saving the nation. They repeat the same script: suspects “fought back,” officers “had no choice,” the dead “deserved it.” She observes how language becomes a shield - “nanlaban” (fought back) becomes the magic word that erases accountability.

She also sees the human side of the police: fear, pride, exhaustion, and the pressure to produce results. The drug war is not only killing suspects; it is reshaping the moral universe of the men who enforce it.

Chapter 6 - The Grief of the Left Behind

This chapter is one of the memoir’s emotional cores. Evangelista attends wakes in cramped homes, listens to mothers describe how their sons were dragged away, and watches children stare at coffins too small for their grief.

She documents the rituals of mourning:

• The plastic chairs borrowed from neighbors.
• The candles flickering beside cheap caskets.
• The whispered stories of what really happened.

These families are not activists. They are ordinary people who never imagined becoming statistics.

Chapter 7 - The Architecture of Fear

Evangelista reveals how the drug war operates like a machine. Local officials compile lists of “drug personalities.” Police commanders coordinate raids. Vigilantes carry out killings with impunity. Neighborhoods learn to police themselves, reporting neighbors out of fear or resentment.

Fear becomes a form of governance. People stay indoors. They avoid speaking to reporters. They learn to look away from bodies on the street.

Chapter 8 - The President’s Weapon: Language

Duterte’s speeches are central to the drug war. Evangelista analyzes how his violent rhetoric - jokes about rape, threats to kill, insults toward critics - shapes public behavior. When the president says “I will kill you,” it is not hyperbole. It is instruction.

She shows how language becomes policy, and how policy becomes death.

Chapter 9 - The Reporter’s Descent

Evangelista confronts the psychological toll of covering nightly killings. She describes nightmares, dissociation, and the numbness that creeps in after seeing too many bodies. She questions her role: Is she documenting suffering or exploiting it? Is she helping families or merely observing them?

This chapter is a meditation on trauma - both personal and national.

PART III - TRUTH UNDER SIEGE

Chapter 10 - The War on Facts

As the killings escalate, the government begins attacking journalists. Officials deny patterns, accuse reporters of bias, and flood the public sphere with misinformation. Evangelista describes the difficulty of verifying stories when witnesses are terrified and police reports are sanitized.

Truth becomes a battlefield.

Chapter 11 - The Courage of Witnesses

Despite the danger, some witnesses speak out. Evangelista interviews neighbors who saw masked men enter homes, children who watched their fathers die, and insiders who leak documents. Their testimonies are fragile but vital.

She treats these witnesses with reverence, knowing that their words may be the only record of what happened.

Chapter 12 - The Collapse of Justice

Evangelista follows families who attempt to seek justice. They encounter bureaucracy, intimidation, and a legal system overwhelmed by impunity. Cases stall. Evidence disappears. Prosecutors shrug.

The drug war is not only killing people; it is killing institutions.

Chapter 13 - The World Takes Notice

International organizations begin investigating. The Philippine government responds with nationalism and denial. Evangelista reports on the tension between sovereignty and accountability, and the political theater that unfolds as the world watches.

PART IV - MEMORY, RESPONSIBILITY, AND WHAT REMAINS

Chapter 14 - The Reporter as Witness

Evangelista reflects on her role. She is not a savior. She is not neutral. She is a witness - someone who carries the stories of the dead so they are not erased. She grapples with guilt, wondering whether telling stories is enough.

But she concludes that silence would be a greater betrayal.

Chapter 15 - A Nation That Allowed It

The drug war is not only Duterte’s doing. It is enabled by citizens who cheer the killings, neighbors who stay silent, and institutions that comply. Evangelista examines the cultural roots of violence: colonial trauma, machismo, class divides, and the desire for order at any cost.

This chapter is a national reckoning.

Chapter 16 - The Slow End of the Killing Years

As Duterte’s term ends, the killings slow but do not stop. Evangelista revisits families she met years earlier. Some have rebuilt their lives; others remain trapped in grief. The wounds of the drug war linger in the silence of communities that have learned to forget.

Chapter 17 - Memory as Resistance

The memoir closes with a meditation on memory. Evangelista insists that the dead must be remembered - not as criminals, but as human beings. She argues that storytelling is an act of resistance against erasure.

The final message is clear:
A nation cannot heal if it refuses to remember.

Closing Reflection

Some People Need Killing is a monumental work - part memoir, part reportage, part national elegy. It forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about violence, complicity, and the stories that shape a country’s soul.

Evangelista’s memoir is not just about the Philippines. It is about what happens when a society decides that some lives matter less than others - and what it takes to bear witness in such a world.