“I support Duterte, but what he’s done now is wrong,” sobs the brother of a drug abuser killed during an ample operation orchestrated under the Filipino president’s campaign against drug trafficking, which is estimated so far to have made over 30,000 victims, many of whom innocent or indirectly involved. This scene takes place halfway through Alyx Ayn Arumpac’s debut film and perfectly conveys the sense of ambiguity that enables the perpetuation of such political circumstances: Duterte enjoys remarkable public support and the devastating impact of his measures is felt especially by the most deprived groups in society. Arumpac fixes his camera right in their midst and bravely stands by his biasness: in his film, only the oppressed have the right to speak, to describe the randomness of the killings, the adversity of life, the ubiquity of drugs. As opposed to the malevolent creature from Filipino folklore which lends its name to the film, the evil that befalls these people has an identifiable origin, one that Arumpac’s film intends and without a doubt succeeds to uncover. (by Liri Alienor Chapelan)