We see this, for example, in one of their accounts that show how community and violence, appear to be co-constitutive to residents of the barangay:
Kuya Jerry had been killed in a drug bust. He was the cousin of an old informant. Ten police officers had chased him. In the end, he tried to escape by climbing a light pole to get across a wall. He had been shot in the leg in the process before being killed. The police claimed it was self-defense but a neighbor, also an old informant, had seen the incident. “In the leg … from below …?” he asked rhetorically. However, everyone knew that Kuya Jerry was on drugs and sometimes sold smaller quantities to support his habit. Asked about the incident, his sister told us, “No, we know who it was and why. We are no longer afraid. We consider it a closed deal.” In this way, the family told us that violence had been predictable. They obviously did not agree with the methods, however, “… it was no surprise that Jerry died,” as the mother continued with grief in her voice.
Here, Jerry’s execution under the usual pretext that he fought back (nanlaban) is met with a mixture of skepticism and resignation. Recognizing the excessive violence of the police, Jerry’s relatives and neighbors nonetheless cling to a narrative that sees his death as necessary and unavoidable. He was a drug user and he knew the risks he faced, and so his death was simply a matter of time. “We consider it a closed deal,” his sister says, and in so doing reframes his death as the price for restoring order in the community. Fear thus emerges as the condition of possibility for living together in a time of war.
Seen from the ground up, extrajudicial killings are regarded by residents as disconcerting yet reassuring. They have the effect of cleansing the community of adiks, who are seen as the sources of disorder and fear. There is then something clarifying about the violence of the war insofar as it seeks to separate the deserving population from those who are undeserving, making the former’s life dependent on the latter’s death.