He died from a bullet to the back of the head and two in the chest. A watchlist of alleged drug users and dealers kept by local officials identified the dead man as “De Juanbbsbet, Constantino, a.k.a. Juan,” 37, and a drug “pusher.” The police said that he was killed in a drug buy-bust operation at 9:05 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2016, in Manila, and that they fired at him because he pulled out a gun.

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According to the Philippine government, at least 6,252 people were killed in such encounters with the police during the drug war launched by Rodrigo Duterte, who was president from 2016 to 2022. Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 people may have been killed by the police and vigilantes.

Mr. Duterte was always clear about his intent. He said, over and over, often to applause, that anyone who resisted arrest on suspicion of selling or using drugs would be killed. They were drug addicts, he said, and addicts are “sick with paranoia” and “are always armed.” Killing them is not murder, only justice, he said. He encouraged the public to take part in the killings.

On March 16, I sat with Juan’s widow, Lourdes,7jogos slots in the choir loft of a Manila church. Mr. Duterte had been arrested a few days earlier and flown to The Hague to stand trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. I asked Lourdes what she thought when she heard the news.

“I’m happy,” she told me, “but not really happy.”

It is a simple answer, brutal in its truth. Three gunshots, and the sky fell. Her children watched Juan die. Her daughter could not speak for months. Her youngest would never remember his father. Juan was a good man, Lourdes says. He loved and was loved. He had bathed the children and cooked them spaghetti before he was shot. He used methamphetamine but was not a drug dealer, Lourdes said. Happy, but not happy, because the cops who killed her husband live free.

I’ve been reporting since 2016 on the people killed during Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs. Their bodies were found floating in rivers, inside garbage bags on street corners, and where they fell in kitchens, alleyways and next to railroad tracks.

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The data suggests that some of the tools used to combat opioid overdoses, such as naloxone, the overdose-reversing medication, were having a significant impact. But researchers and federal and state health officials have puzzled over the exact reasons for the decrease, including why overdoses have fallen so much in recent months.

“I just don’t like the way they’re playing it, telling us we should all be more optimistic when things just are not looking good right now,” Mr. Howard said while warming up for a softball game in East Las Vegas. “They’re all out for themselves, not helping people like us over here. We just get the same promises, and not much is changing.”

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