内容摘要：Palestinian girls struggle to reach for food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian girls struggle to reach for food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

By then, Marcelo’s mother, Betty Soriano, had decided to start accompanying her son on his nightly tricycle shifts. The family believed he would be safer, and her presence would discourage him from spending time with the drug users he always ran across.Marcelo then made his wife an extraordinary promise: He was quitting shabu. It had become too dangerous.

Betchie felt he had to do more, and convinced him to work day shifts. But the competition was too tough, the money too little, and Marcelo reverted to working nights. He told Betchie she didn’t have to worry “because I’m not using drugs anymore.”At one point, a government official approached Marcelo at his tricycle stand, and told him he needed to turn himself in, a process called “surrendering” that has drawn about 700,000 drug users so far. Most have been released after acknowledging their crimes, giving up the names of others involved in the narcotics trade, and pledging never to use again.Marcelo waved the man off, saying it wasn’t necessary. He had already quit.

The police statistics show an astounding rise in the number of drug suspects shot dead by security forces: just 68 in the first half of the year, compared to 1,578 since Duterte took office.Vigilantes, though, appear to have killed significantly more: as many as 2,151 murders police have either linked to the drug trade or classified as “unexplained.” At least 864 of them were carried out by motorcycle-riding gunmen — a favored tactic employed by vigilantes against drug suspects.

Two unidentified drug suspects lie on the ground after being shot by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

Two unidentified drug suspects lie on the ground after being shot by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)U.S.-born Buddhist lama, Jalue Dorje, right, and a member of the Minnesota Tibetan community bow and touch foreheads in a traditional Tibetan greeting at his 18th birthday and enthronement ceremony in Isanti, Minn., on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

U.S.-born Buddhist lama, Jalue Dorje, right, and a member of the Minnesota Tibetan community bow and touch foreheads in a traditional Tibetan greeting at his 18th birthday and enthronement ceremony in Isanti, Minn., on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)Attendants listen under the rain as a rabbi delivers an eulogy during a ceremony prior to the funeral of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Kogan in Kfar Chabad, Israel, Monday Nov. 25, 2024. Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, was killed last week in Dubai where he ran a kosher grocery store. Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.(AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Attendants listen under the rain as a rabbi delivers an eulogy during a ceremony prior to the funeral of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Kogan in Kfar Chabad, Israel, Monday Nov. 25, 2024. Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, was killed last week in Dubai where he ran a kosher grocery store. Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.(AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)People walk past as France’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral is reflected in a puddle Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024 in Paris before the formal reopening for the first time since a devastating fire nearly destroyed the 861-year-old landmark in 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)