PHILIPPINES

The Filipino seafarer's life is a microcosm of Filipino masculine sacrifice. An estimated 400,000 Filipino men work on the world's ships — cargo vessels, cruise liners, oil tankers — spending 9-12 months at sea before returning home for a few weeks of jarring reintegration. These men develop relationships with their children via intermittent video calls, miss birthdays and funerals, and carry the loneliness of the open ocean while sending remittances that fund their family's education and housing. The heroism is real; so is the psychological devastation.

Duterte's drug war (2016-2022) was a war on poor men. The extrajudicial killings targeted alleged drug users and dealers — overwhelmingly young, poor, urban men — creating a climate of terror in communities like Tondo, Caloocan, and Davao where a knock on the door at night could mean death. The survivors carry PTSD in communities where the state itself was the perpetrator, and the transition to post-Duterte governance hasn't included accountability or psychological support. The Catholic Church, while vocally opposing the drug war, offers men confession and mass but not the therapeutic intervention that communities processing mass violence actually need. Meanwhile, Filipino men in the Gulf states — construction workers, drivers, domestic workers — face the kafala system's exploitation: passports confiscated, wages withheld, and no legal recourse in countries where their labor builds skylines their families will never see.