Inquirer’s Raffy Lerma wins best photo award

INQUIRER photographer Raffy Lerma. POCHOLO CONCEPCION

For Philippine Daily Inquirer photographer Raffy Lerma, coming in early for a feeding program in Tondo, Manila, led to a photograph that won him his first award from the Save the Children Media Awards.

Lerma bagged Most Outstanding Photograph for his work titled “Hungry Kids,” besting nine other finalists at the awards night on Tuesday at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus.

The photo, taken in January, features a line of children outside the Gasangan World Mission Community in Baseco, as they wait to get their share of free meals. Pink plastic cups and plates are in the foreground.

In its second year, the Save the Children Media Awards aims to recognize print and audiovisual journalism dedicated to presenting child hunger and malnutrition in the country as an urgent and alarming issue.

It was Lerma’s first time to join the particular competition. But his winning photo was also a finalist for Best News Photograph at the 38th Catholic Mass Media Awards this year.

In his acceptance speech, he referred to his college days when he saw hungry children everywhere, making them his early subjects for his photojournalism.

“It was my usual theme and through the years, admittedly, I started paying less attention to them,” he told the Inquirer.

“But after I took these photos [in Baseco], the eagerness to shoot these themes have returned,” he added. The winning photo was featured in the front page of the Inquirer.

Lerma said it was his first time to go to that feeding program in Baseco and coming in early proved to be an asset. “I entered [the building] to see the line, as well as the eagerness of the children [in receiving their daily meal].”

The Inquirer photographer also recently made headlines for his photos that showed the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.

Working graveyard shifts, Lerma has produced memorable works, most notably the Pieta-like photo of a weeping Jennelyn Olaires and slain partner Michael Siaron, who was gunned down near Pasay Rotonda in July.

The photo landed not only on the Inquirer front page, but also on The New York Times.

But Lerma stressed that beyond the drug war, issues like child hunger and malnutrition should also be given equal attention.

“This award gives me more motivation to work on these kinds of stories to raise awareness,” he said.