Horrors of Dutertes Drug War Exposed in New National Geographic Episode
A couple of weeks before Christmas, National Geographics Ryan Duffy joined Filipino crime beat reporters on Manila's graveyard shift. On a tip, the American rides in a convoy of press cars to the scene of a vigilante killing. So begins a new feature on the Philippines' drug war, which airs Monday. It shows the aftermath of the first of five deadly shootings reported that night one of over 7,000 since Rodrigo Duterte began his so-called war on drugs on July 1. Replete with footage of bagged bodies in rain-slicked slums and relatives weeping at wakes  and overlaid with the Philippine President's brutal statements on killing millions of addicts  Nat Geo captures in motion a world rendered by James Nachtwey in his series In Manila Death Comes by Night, and by local photographers on the frontlines of the war. Duffy's reporting  from crime scene, to wake, to drug rehab center  roughly follows the trajectory of Rishi Iyengar's The Killing Time. But there's also footage of a little-shown aspect of the drug war Operation Tokhang  a portmanteau of the Visayan words for "knock" and "plead." A clip shows police sweeping through a neighborhood and apparently arbitrarily detaining residents. The film suggest that the list of "surrendered" people compiled under such operations  which now counts more than 1 million members  might just be a hit list. "If you don't surrender they will kill you. But then again, even if you surrender they will also kill you," the father of a son who had surrendered and was later killed by police said in the first episode of Nat Geos Explorer series. In a December survey conducted by Social Weather Station, 78 of Filipinos said they feared they or someone they knew would become a victim of extrajudicial killings  yet 85 reported being satisfied with the ongoing operations to curb drugs. It's a contradiction captured neatly here. "Drug addicts are not humans," one interviewee said in support of the killings. His is a popular refrain. It comes straight from the President himself "Crime against humanity?" Duterte has memorably mused, "In the first place, I'd like to be frank with you are they humans?", National Geographics Explorer returns Monday, March 6.