Duterte's War on Drugs Kills Almost 2,000 in Echo of Thai Battles
- Philippine leader says drugs a pandemic; nearly 2,000 killed
- Popular for now, Duterte could suffer as list of enemies grows
This article is for subscribers only.
Edgar Acebuche made around $32 a week driving a garbage truck and selling old bottles and papers in his Manila shanty town. It wasn’t enough to provide for his two children, help his younger sibling through school and pay for his mother’s hypertension medicine, so he sold drugs.
When Acebuche, who dreamed of opening a billiards hall, realized that Rodrigo Duterte might win the Philippine presidency with his pledge to start a merciless war on drugs, relatives say he stopped dealing. "He left Manila" to lay low, said his cousin Alicia Danao, returning home occasionally to see his kids and wash their clothes.