By Athena Nikolis
When I first arrived at the Ateneo de Manila University Law School, an elite institution located in the affluent Rockwell neighbourhood of Metro Manila, I quickly discovered that it is a place defined by its socioeconomic exclusivity. Its privilege is evidenced by its bar passing rate, which is triple the national average. Students on full academic scholarships shared the barriers posed by the high cost of housing and everyday life in the area. It became clear that this was not a space that reflected the realities of most Filipinos.
Within this enclave operates the Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC) dedicated to promoting human rights in the Philippines through alternative lawyering. Its interns, young law students like myself, were deeply empathetic, politically aware, and committed to advocating for structural change.
The more I left this privileged enclave and engaged with the surrounding city, especially in marginalized communities like Tondo, Manila the more I began to understand that the battle for human rights in the Philippines is not just about exposing abuses, but about grappling with underlying conditions that make authoritarianism feel reasonable, and even necessary, to those it harms most.
Marcos and Duterte: two dark chapters of Philippine History
When I first met the other interns, they spoke candidly about the Filipino government, guiding me through its corruption scandals, climate of impunity, and its succession of politicians operating with no sense of public duty. Power is concentrated in the hands of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte, heirs to two of the most internationally condemned political dynasties in Philippine history.
The Marcos dictatorship (1972–1986) was marked by the declaration of martial law, during which civil liberties were suspended, thousands were arrested, tortured, or killed, and the press was silenced. It ended with the peaceful People Power Revolution (EDSA) in 1986, which restored democracy. Yet in 2022, his son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was elected president.
Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency (2016–2022), too, was defined by human rights abuses. Between an 12,000 to 30,000 people were killed in his “war on drugs,” which targeted petty criminals and drug users.1 His presidency was characterized by an erosion of the freedom of the press, and a climate of fear and impunity. He is currently being investigated for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Yet in 2022, his daughter, Sara Duterte, was elected vice-president.
While this new generation of leaders is less overt in their human rights violations than their fathers, perhaps having realized how blatant disregard for human life can damage a reputation, elements of their fathers’ authoritarian tendencies remain. The interns explained that this was evidenced when this year, for the first time, President Marcos declined to commemorate the EDSA Revolution, which toppled his father’s regime. Even more inconceivably, Vice President Sara Duterte is facing impeachment for missing government funds, and for stating she hired an assassin to kill the president and his wife. She has expressed she wishes for a “bloodbath” during her impeachment trial.
As a Canadian law student, I found their election incomprehensible. We are taught not only to accept, but to expect respect for the rule of law as the foundation of our judicial system, and decorum and accountability from public officials. Every law student I met at Ateneo, with privileged access to education, agreed on the inadequacy of their leaders. So why were they still winning elections?
A Visit to Tondo, Manila
I found the answer unexpectedly, while walking through Tondo, a dense, low-income district in Metro Manila where homes spilled into streets crowded with market stalls, laundry lines and children playing video games on coin-slot computers. Private life unfolded publicly, and I continuously felt as though I had stepped into someone’s home.
Residents approached me with curiosity, some reaching out to shake my hand. My guide informed me that tourists were rare, as Tondo had only recently become safe enough to visit. “Ten years ago,” he explained, “this would’ve been unthinkable. You couldn’t walk here holding a phone or carrying money.” I asked what had changed, and his answer was immediate: “Duterte.”
Tondo, I learned, is a Duterte stronghold. The tour’s meeting point, Liwasang Bonifacio square, had only weeks earlier hosted roughly a thousand supporters rallying in prayer for the former president’s success in the ICC proceedings.
The irony of this situation struck me: this was the very population most vulnerable to Duterte’s brutal war on drugs. Many had surely lost neighbors or relatives. Yet when I gently asked about Duterte, they were eager to talk. Four conversations stayed with me: with Teresita, Agustin, Tomas, and Arturo.
Teresita was the first person I met. With a gesture, she invited me into her cardboard home, which my 5’8” frame threatened to collapse. I learnt about her daily life as a flour seller, and eventually asked her about her political views. With no phone or television, she relied on neighborhood conversations to form opinions. Her English was limited, but her message was clear: “no violence with Duterte.” When I asked if she thought he was a peaceful man, she nodded.
Nearby, I saw a man in his seventies sitting in a padyak, a cycle rickshaw. I learned he was employed by a company renting out padyaks to different drivers, who slept sitting inside them, parked in front of its office. They were allowed to use the company’s bathroom for basic hygiene, and could sleep on the floor indoors only when it rained. He pedaled from 8 PM to 4 AM every night, earning 300 pesos, of which 100 went to the company. When I asked if he could one day afford a more adequate living space, he told me his daily income (200 PHP, or 4.80 CAD) barely covered food. I learned that his two sons were imprisoned, one for stabbing someone, and the other for using drugs.
His son had been a victim of Duterte’s carceral crackdown, which saw 22,500 drug-related arrests and more than 732,000 surrenders in his first 100 days in office.2 When the conversation veered to politics, I expected him to express resentment towards Duterte. I was surprised to learn he vehemently supported him. I understood that someone who sleeps outside, separated from the street by nothing but a curtain, cannot afford to oppose a man who made him feel safer at night.
The most forceful endorsement of Duterte came from Tomas, a uniformed police officer I met. As the conversation flowed comfortably, I ventured to ask him how many people he had killed extra-judicially, not expecting a response. He answered matter-of-factly: fifty-three. Then, he showed me the gun he had used. Despite my efforts to remain composed, he must have noticed my horror. I asked him how, after being ordered to carry out such acts, he could still believe this system to be fundamentally favorable to him.
He described the danger of life as a police officer before Duterte, punctuated by constant gang threats to himself and his family, and the killings of colleagues he had once called friends. He felt that Duterte was the first leader to improve their situation.
When I told him I was in Manila for a human rights internship, he laughed. He said he found human rights naïve, their focus on due process for criminals misguided, even absurd. He argued that this preoccupation came at the cost of innocent lives. In a country without the institutional capacity to uphold due process effectively, he believed such ideals to be paralyzing.
When asked to elaborate, he very directly told me: “Human rights are like a pest in our society. When police got killed, no one talked about human rights at all. But when it’s a criminal, everyone always talks about human rights. So where is the fairness there? I don’t understand.”
He added: “Now, it’s totally safe. A lot of people died, but it made the country much better. Those guys committed crimes so sometimes they get punished in a harsh way. So to be fair, instead of us being killed, we sacrifice others.”
What struck me was the consistency of the residents’ responses. Even among those harmed by Duterte’s policies, many saw the violence as tragic but necessary. While some justified violence as retribution, most simply observed a tangible change in their daily life. Extra-judicial killings were seen as the price of stability, collateral damage in a war to make Tondo livable. Duterte’s enduring popularity, even in communities devastated by his drug war, suddenly made a kind of sense.
The absolute inhumanity of Duterte’s regime, however, remained at the forefront of my thoughts. I knew that he had not only targeted so-called “criminals”, as unacceptable as that already was. He had been linked to the Davao Death Squad, a militia in his hometown notorious for mercilessly killing “street children.” He had ordered the bombing of Lumad Indigenous schools, some with children still inside, in an effort to silence resistance to commercial development on ancestral lands. The unspeakable brutality of his legacy became painfully real when I met Arturo.
Arturo was a frail man with a sunken face and eyes clouded by cataracts. His body featured faded tattoos that told his story. Among them, I recognized the letters “BCJ” and the number five. His wife, whose portrait was inked on his chest, had left him, and he now lived in a discarded tricycle adjacent to Teresita’s home.
Arturo explained that “BCJ” stood for Batang City Jail, one of the most powerful pangkats (gangs) operating in New Bilibid Prison. He joined BJC out of necessity, having been arrested in 2019 after being caught in a police raid while using meth, and had spent four years behind bars. He explained that without gang protection, inmates risked becoming “slaves” to rival groups, enduring rape, beatings, and extortion. He explained the significance of the number “5”: it was imagined as four dots forming a square surrounding a central dot, symbolizing an inmate protected by his “brothers”. Within BCJ, every member had a role, and Arturo had been responsible for cleaning their dormitory.
When I brought up Duterte, Arturo was the first resident to go quiet. My guide leaned in and said what was already clear: Arturo was still using the same drugs. He had struggled with addiction when it had been violently criminalized by his government, and still felt that vulnerability. He was a casualty of Duterte’s war, sacrificed so that others, including a woman now sleeping just a meter away, might feel safer.
The Power of Populism
The widespread support I encountered in Tondo is borne out in national polls. The AHRC interns showed me a map of the 2025 Senate elections in Metro Manila. In the northern part of the city, the area with the most extrajudicial killings during the drug war, Duterte’s close ally Bong Go won. As in Tondo, violence had consolidated Duterte’s base.
Political analysts have sought to rationalize this phenomenon of selective memory of the Duterte regime. They explain that Duterte projected strength, masculinity, and resolve. He offered a simple explanation for underdevelopment: “shabu,” or drugs. His promise was visceral and emotional, relying on fear and hope, and straightforward: kill all the dealers, clean up the country.3
The sense of abandonment by previous democratic governments, due to corrupt leaders and dependence on former colonizers, made fear seem tolerable, even welcome, if it brought results. As Galito writes, when people feel forgotten, populism feels courageous.4 I saw this firsthand: in places where the state has long failed, rights-based discourse can feel like a distant, abstract, and even condescending “pest”.
Humility, Empathy and an Open Mind
This was my first true lesson in human rights work: it is not only access to rights that is unequal, but also the ability to prioritize rights in political choices. The effectiveness of “teaching people their rights” presumes a level of security and stability many don’t have.
I learned that avoiding paternalism is essential. A system that looks ideal on paper may not feel just or safe in lived reality. That of course doesn’t mean we stop fighting for human rights and due process, but it does mean we must temper our judgments. The challenge is not just to fight for rights, but to understand the social realities that shape how people experience their rights. We must make space for discomfort and gray zones, and listen with humility, empathy and an open mind.
- Sol Iglesias, “Explaining the Pattern of ‘War on Drugs’ Violence in the Philippines under Duterte” (2023) 61:2 Asian Survey 179, online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aspp.12689
- Philippine Daily Inquirer, “A Look at the 1st 100 Days of Duterte’s ‘Phenomenal’ Rule” (10 October 2016), online: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/823155/a-look-at-the-1st-100-days-of-dutertes-phenomenal-rule
- Helena Malmgren, The Philippine Drug War: A Study on Rodrigo Duterte’s Populist Authoritarianism (Master’s Thesis, Lund University Department of Political Science, 2016) at 10, online: https://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=8997651&fileOId=8997654
- Ibid at 16.