Keywords: Duterte; war on drugs; widowhood; political violence; Marcos Jr.

Introduction

“For every tokhang victim, there is a woman wailing beside”, says human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares, an insight immortalized in media pictures depicting women cradling their husband's lifeless bodies. President Rodrigo Duterte launched a brutal campaign against illegal drugs in 2016, promising that drug suspects and other criminals would be killed. The campaign, led by the Philippine National Police (PNP), is officially called “Double Barrel”. The “upper barrel” of the programme is called Project High-Value Target, aimed at high-level drug traffickers and syndicates. The “lower barrel” is Project Tokhang, which involves door-to-door visits of suspected drug personalities’ homes to convince them to cease their illegal activities. These visits highlight tokhang, a play on the Visayan words for knock (toktok) and plead (hangyo).

In implementing tokhang, thousands of lives were lost in violent police operations, which the police claimed happened because the suspects resisted arrest or fought back (nanlaban). Most of these killings took place in urban poor communities; the sudden uptick in violence is historically unprecedented in the Philippines and has raised macro-political concerns about police impunity, the erosion of due process, and the militarization of political life. All these are inextricably linked to the state of Philippine democracy.