THE 17-year-old—call him Doni—had just injected putaw (heroin) into his right arm when the doors of his house were crashed open. There was a lot of noise in the sitting room. Doni hurried down the stairs.

As he was about to reach the room from the decrepit wooden stairs, he saw five plainclothes men seize his father, Harman—his pseudonym. The father, along with some quantities of putaw and shabu-shabu (methamphetamine) found there, was ca