Duterte's War
When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte won the elections in July 2016, it wasn’t long until dead bodies were found sprawled on the streets of Manila. This was his campaign promise—to wage war on illegal drugs by means of death and violence. At least 7000 people were killed by police and unidentified masked men within six months of his anti-illegal drug campaign. Today, almost three years since the drug war began, the death toll has reached 20,000 according to human rights groups. With the majority killed being fathers, the drug war has also orphaned tens of thousands of children, and widowed mothers fighting for survival amidst impunity.
Nightfall
Forty years after the reign of terror, the nightmares still haven’t left. Chia still dreams about the nights she suffered under the hands of Khmer Rouge cadres. Led by Marxist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killed up to two million people across Cambodia from 1975 to 1979—by starvation, exhaustion, and executions. Chia suffered a miscarriage, lost her father and husband within those four years. In solitude, she remembers the lives she lost, and the life she has lived through dreams and photographs.
