Spirituality and Support in the Aftermath of Violence: Qualitative Empirical Research among Victims of the War on Drugs in the Philippines

Abstract

Abstract Since Duterte became the president of the Philippines in 2016 and announced a ‘War against Drugs’, extrajudicial killings were happening frequently, especially in areas where many people living in poverty. This article presents empirical research based on in-depth interviews with women whose partners or sons were killed in the ‘war against drugs’ and with pastoral leaders/volunteers, related to a Catholic parish in the Philippines. The question was how these women experience spirituality and how they describe their needs and expectations from the parish. We explain how discourses about ‘sin’ or ‘spirituality’ are used in various ways in the context of the Philippines: as a legitimation for the extrajudicial killings, or in the context of supporting vulnerable persons in their flourishing. This article helps us to understand how these concepts acquire different meanings depending on the context in which they are used and how they can contribute to the flourishing of persons.