Meet the Deadly Female Assassin Hired by Her Own Government to Take Down Drug Lords

In order to weed out drugs in the country, the government of Philippines has recruited female assassins to do the odd job.

The female assassin hired by government to kill drug lords (Photo:Carlo Gabuco)

The Philippines is in the midst of a brutal war on drugs sanctioned by the controversial President Rodrigo Duterte, which has seen almost 2,000 killings in a matter of weeks. The BBC's Jonathan Head explores the country's dark underbelly of dealers and assassins through the story of one woman trapped in a chilling predicament.

When you meet an assassin who has killed six people, you don't expect to encounter a diminutive, nervous young woman carrying a baby.

"My first job was two years ago in this province nearby. I felt really scared and nervous because it was my first time."

Maria, not her real name, now carries out contract killings as part of the government-sanctioned war on drugs. She is part of a hit team that includes three women, who are valued because they can get close to their victims without arousing the same suspicion a man would.

Since President Duterte was elected, and urged citizens and police to kill drug dealers who resisted arrest, Maria has killed five more people, shooting them all in the head.

I asked her who gave the orders for these assassinations: "Our boss, the police officer," she said.

On the very afternoon we met, she and her husband had been told their safe house had been exposed. They were moving in a hurry.

This controversial drug war has brought her more work, but more risk too. She described how it began when her husband was commissioned to kill a debtor by a policeman - one who was also a drug pusher.

"My husband was ordered to kill people who had not paid what they owed."

This turned into a regular commission for her husband until a more challenging situation cropped up.

"One time, they needed a woman... my husband tapped me to do the job. When I saw the man I was supposed to kill, I got near him and I shot him. "

Maria and her husband come from an impoverished neighbourhood of Manila and had no regular income before agreeing to become contract killers. They earn up to 20,000 Philippines pesos ($430; £327) per hit, which is shared between three or four of them. That is a fortune for low-income Filipinos, but now it looks as if Maria has no way out.

Contract killing is nothing new in the Philippines. But the hit squads have never been as busy as they are now. President Duterte has sent out an unambiguous message.

Ahead of his election, he promised to kill 100,000 criminals in his first six months in office. And he has warned drug dealers in particular: "Do not destroy my country, because I will kill you."

Last weekend he reiterated that blunt view, as he defended the extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals.

"Do the lives of 10 of these criminals really matter? If I am the one facing all this grief, would 100 lives of these idiots mean anything to me?"

Source: BBC