A pathologist, a priest and a hunt for justice in the Philippines

Aurora Blas clutches the urn of her husband Thelmo Blas, a drug war victim, after a ceremony to receive his ashes in a church in Manila, Philippines, on Oct 20, 2021. - Reuters

MANILA (Reuters): The same day Aurora Blas found her husband’s body in a Manila funeral home in 2016 with a bullet hole in his head, she signed a document provided by the mortician saying pneumonia had killed him. That decision has haunted her.

She couldn’t afford an autopsy, so she agreed to the lie in order to bury her husband. Like others who lost loved ones in the surge of vigilante-style killings in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte, Aurora said she was compelled to accept a death certificate that failed to acknowledge what everyone knew: Her husband was shot dead by unknown assailants, another casualty in the nation’s drug war.