I lost my husband to Duterte’s war on drugs
Body bags mount, prisons overflow. But the Philippine president is keeping the masses happy
The cries of the newborn boy pierce the silence of the shack in metro Manila where he is being raised by his grieving, widowed mother.
It is just three months since the boy’s father and grandfather were shot dead in police custody, a nightmare Harra Kazuo, his mother, relives daily.
On July 6, just before midnight, three uniformed policemen – one carrying a rifle – barged into their shack in Pasay City and grabbed the heavily pregnant woman’s husband, Jaypee Bertes, 28.
“Where are the drugs? Just give them to us!” she recalls the furious officers yelling. “Do you want us to kill you?”
Watch: A close-up view of Duterte’s war on drugs
They dragged Jaypee to the police station along with his father, Renato Bertes, 49, despite their pleas for clemency and by the afternoon of the following day, both men were dead – Jaypee shot in the jaw, arm and abdomen, Renato in the head, chest and shoulder.