From The New York Times, a photojournalist captured the brutal anti-drug campaign in the Philippines.
The opening—a strong and captivating paragraph, sets the tone on what’s to come.
YOU HEAR A MURDER SCENE before you see it: The desperate cries of a new widow. The piercing sirens of approaching police cars. The thud, thud, thud of the rain drumming on the pavement of a Manila alleyway — and on the back of Romeo Torres Fontanilla.
Tigas, as Mr. Fontanilla was known, was lying facedown in the street when I pulled up after 1 a.m. He was 37. Gunned down, witnesses said, by two unknown men on a motorbike. The downpour had washed his blood into the gutter.
“They are slaughtering us like animals,” said a bystander who was afraid to give his name.
[…] police officers’ summarily shooting anyone suspected of dealing or even using drugs, vigilantes’ taking seriously Mr. Duterte’s call to “slaughter them all.”
The pictures are gruesome. The violence is real. It’s being instigated by a Philippine leader with no regards to human lives. Living in fear, no one is spared. The decision to eradicate drug comes at the expense of massive(preventable) death toll.
They say 2016 is a horrible year. But going by the state of things, the future is even more uncertain as questionable politicians threaten to paint the world even darker.