There were corpses every night at the height of the killings. Seven, twelve, twenty-six, the brutality reduced to a paragraph, sometimes only a sentence each. The language failed as the body count rose.

When I think about the Philippines, the first thing that comes to mind is shoes. Remember how crazily astounding Imelda Marcos was? I was in primary school when Ferdinand Marcos was President but even then, I recognised an abuse of power.

Patricia Evangelista’s book, Some People Need Killing, begins with Marcos and then goes on to describe the military and public protests that led to the People Power Revolution, which removed Marcos and installed the popular Corazon Aquino as president. Aquino developed a new constitution which limited presidential power, including creating a single-term limit. Political instability followed and the fragility of the democratic institutions remained for decades afterwards, ultimately exploited under the regime of Rodrigo Duterte. Continue reading →