Kwentong Butsero is bloody, dark, unsettling, and deeply Filipino. It explores the ways that people can be cruel, the way we can butcher others because of greed, vanity, and sadism. What's scary about the stories within the book is not just the horror elements or possibility of evil forces, but how close it is to the reality of the darkest parts of the Philippine society. These are real people you might meet or have met, and that's terrifying. The anthology is cohesive, with interwoven themes and callbacks to different stories within the collection. The illustrations add to the tone of the stories and are unapologetic in their gritty aesthetic. Chua's writing is sharp and witty, though I wish it could be more descriptive at times. It's the first time I've ever heard of transgressive fiction (a genre of literature that breaks social, moral, and literary taboos to explore characters who rebel against societal norms), and this might be my first foray into it, but it surely won't be my last.

By the end, I was left deeply thinking about Chua's words in an interview: "We may not physically butcher people, but are we not guilty of cruelty in other ways? Underpaying employees, backstabbing friends, spreading lies, indulging in vanity at the expense of others—these, too, are acts of butchery.".

A poignant and resonant piece of journalism that's equal parts frustrated scream of rage and melancholic release of grief.

I appreciated Evangelista's framing centering on the use of language, and how political messaging is intentionally weaponized to justify the unjustifiable. How dehumanization of certain groups leads to manufacturing consent for their erasure, and how language can be a colonial legacy used to uphold imperial structures. Especially interesting were her insights onto passive vs. active language. Somebody dying vs. somebody being shot by police. Since finishing this book, I see this intentional language choice everywhere, especially in traditional media such as news reports and headlines.

What struck me most about this framing was how it felt so close to home. Although The Philippines has its own rich, complicated history, I found the messaging used to enable Duterte's disappearing of people to be chillingly familiar. The eugenicist foundation of choosing who deserves to live and die, arbitrarily labeling people criminals while denying the systemic issues leading them to poverty and addiction, and dismissive handwaving of justice by allowing his police force to act with absolute impunity.

As an American, all of it felt so reminiscent of our own justice and legal systems, and how they target marginalized communities and create an endless loop of suffering and abuse.

Not only are the tactics the same, but the systems that create inequity and violence are identical. Evangelista paints a picture of how neoliberal Western imperialism harms the world. I won't venture to speak as an expert on Filipino history, but the throughline to Duterte hinges so heavily on colonialism and American intervention. Though Duterte's actions are absolutely inexcusable, I felt a deep sense of grief seeing how poverty, marginalization, and justified distrust of Western powers created an amalgamation of violence that seems to have no end.

Just as heavy was the confirmation that Duterte is not a unique figure, someone that can be voted out and replaced with a better future, but a result of toxic rot due to colonial powers. I have yet to read a book that better exemplifies the reality that strongmen are not aberrations in the system, but a colonial inheritance worthy of deconstruction and revolution.

While I sometimes wished Evangelista would have addressed the systems of power a bit more, I ended up liking how she kept things matter-of-fact and centered the framing on language and experience. This book isn't meant to be a takedown of colonialism and imperialism, though it can certainly be a weapon in the arsenal. Rather, Some People Need Killing calls out the false narrative for what it is, pointing out the language tactics used by the oppressor and giving voice to the victims that the government wants to erase.

The result is a book full of so much rage and grief that creates a sense of urgency, a desire for action, a demanding of justice. Evangelista's writing is deft, but emotionally raw, perfectly straddling the line between systemic political critique and personal, individual reflection.

And if someone says, “you’ll be dead tomorrow” I say “well, everyone dies, but at least I won't die DDS”

This book is an extremely powerful account of the violence that was committed in the name of Duterte's "War on Drugs" PE writes with deep compassion for the families she interviews and for her country itself - especially as she wishes her country could do better. I find it hard to even write this review because how do you write a review about people's traumatic lived experiences? I really appreciated the care that PE gives to language. She talks about the new terminology that has been created and used to talk about this violence (extra-judicial killing, salvaging, and to be disappeared). PE showcases how languages is manipulated in order to remove government accountability and create logic flows where this person uses drugs so they must be violent which means they deserve to die

My one complaint is I wish that PE talked more about what is going on behind the scenes to enable this level of violence - I want a bit more analysis of why and how but PE sticks mostly to what. She starts to talk about questions of why and how in the beginning of the book when she talks about the Philippine's history of colonization, former dictators, and Duterte's rise to power as Mayor. But then she doesn't carry that though to Duerte's presidency. Once he becomes president, we hear very little about how he is actually involved in institutionalizing this violence. This book is very fact based, which while good, I wish PE provided a bit more analysis to connect the violence she is witnessing to the larger socio-political context. But ultimately this is a very small critique that I had and I didn't find that this took away from main PE's objective of this book which is "a memoir of murder".