democracy discourse fellow
Raffy Lerma
Raffy Lerma is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Manila, Philippines. For 12 years, Lerma worked as a staff photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer covering the daily news beat in Metro Manila. He has shifted into working independently to focus on his documentation of the Philippines’ war on drugs.
He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) for best news photograph, an award of distinction from the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and was a finalist twice for the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography in 2017 and 2018. Lerma has been exhibiting his photographs and giving talks in different parts of the Philippines and the world to help disseminate to a broader audience the realities of the drug war in the country.
Country
Philippines
Categories
Photojournalism
Human Rights
Democracy Discourse Project
The documentary photography project chronicles the ongoing “war against illegal drugs” in the Philippines. This campaign, pursued under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration since July 2016, has left thousands of suspected drug users and pushers dead.
What remains mostly unchronicled are the lives of those left behind. It will look beyond crime scenes and look into the lives of those directly affected by the Philippine government’s brutal war on drugs, specifically the families of slain victims, drug rehabilitation patients, and communities exposed to this constant violence in Metro Manila and the province. This project hopes to produce visual stories that raise awareness, stir empathy, and contribute to breaking the climate of impunity and violent policy.
