The Photography Grant - Photojournalism Nominee 2020
London (September 2020) - Photographer Annamaria Bruni was Awarded: Talent of the Year 2020 for the winning entry Requiem for a Dream.
Over the last few years, Philippine's President Duterte has been ‘cleansing’ the country from drug dealers and drugs users with his death squads.
Police estimate more than 5,000 suspected and addicts have been killed since President Duterte took office in 2016, but according to Human Rights Group since the “war on drugs” began, 22.983 deaths are classified as “homicides under investigation.”
Sammer Torculas was among these.
Half Phillipino and half Jordanian, he was dragged into the Drug business by Gigi, his mother, who made her living by selling Shabu.
Shabu began in the 1990s as the drug of choice among the affluent, but over the past decade it has filtered down into the masses and has become very popular among the lower classes. It has come to be known as “the poor man’s cocaine”.
Despite the warning of the police, Sammer continued to sell meth in his own neighborhood in Pandacan, a district in Manila, , and on December of 2016 he was shot in front of his house by the Death Squads, although he was unarmed and begged for mercy.
Immediately following his death, Sammer's mother Gigi was jailed for drug possession and transferred to the main prison in Manila, where she served time for for possession and dealing of drugs.
