Duterte’s war on drugs creating generation of orphans
Children in Manila’s poorest neighbourhoods are paying an especially heavy price for the anti-drugs campaign of the Philippine president, which has taken thousands of lives since he came to power. Photographs by Paul Ratje
“I hope Duterte can see what happened to my cousin,” says Maryanne da Silva, 43, surrounded by children. “We thought the [anti-drug] operations were good, when they kill the addicts. But when they killed their father, they also killed the children.”
Long concrete steps lead up to the smooth, clean-swept cement floor of an open single-storey public building in Tugatog, in Metro Manila’s Malabon City. A tin roof fends off the sun’s harsh rays. The children laugh and play just feet away from a white, glass-topped coffin, within which lies the body of Maryanne’s first cousin, Agustine da Silva.
A smiling boy of less than 10 looks through the glass at the ashen, waxy face inside, seemingly unable to grasp the gravity of the situation. Koykoy, says Maryanne, suffers from a mental impairment that is either hereditary or has been brought on by solvent abuse, a habit many of Manila’s homeless children indulge in to stave off hunger.
Agustine, Maryanne reveals, was Koykoy’s father. On October 14, the 42-year-old was gunned down in the Sangandaan district of Caloocan, in the Philippines’ capital.
He has joined the more than 3,000 – and counting – men and women who have been killed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against not only those who sell drugs, but those who use them, too.
