MANILA ¨C When masked vigilantes killed her husband at the height of the Philippines¡¯ ¡°war on drugs¡± in 2016, Liza Igcasinza admitted to the police that she was using banned substances and was forced to spend a year in rehab.
¡°I was very frightened. The police took our mug shots as if we were criminals,¡± Igcasinza, now 50, told Context.
She was one of thousands of Filipinos who submitted to a harsh regime of rehabilitation treatment rather than take the chance of a worse fate at a time when armed gangs were carrying out summary killings of drug users and dealers.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.