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On the President’s Orders 1x54, 1x71

This is a searing, on-the-ground look inside President Duterte’s bloody campaign against suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines. On the President’s Orders is based on unprecedented access to the police themselves, as well as President Duterte’s own statements and speeches, and time spent with victimsexposing a murky world where crime, drugs, poverty and politics converge.

Award-winning directors James Jones and Olivier Sarbil (Mosul) examined the continuing suspicions that police have been carrying out extrajudicial killings–despite Duterte promising to scale back his war on drugs. In addition to speaking with the families of drug users and victims, Jones and Sarbil embedded with a police unit in Caloocan, Manila, offering an unfiltered glimpse into their world and the officers’ modus operandi. The film also illustrates how President Duterte’s crackdown on drug users has greatly affected the country’s most impoverished citizens—a campaign that citizen protestors say is “clearly a war on the poor.”

On the President’s Orders is a gripping, visually stunning window into Duterte’s war on drugs—those carrying it out, and those most impacted by it.