Shooting the President

The first President from Mindanao, getting more than 15-million votes, 6-million more than his nearest rival.

President Rodrigo Duterte was a long-time Mayor of Davao City (22 years). Joining the Philippine Information Agency in 2003,I was able to cover some of his activities in his stints as City Mayor, Vice Mayor (2010-2013) and President-elect.

Unfortunately some of the old photos were in my old desktops and laptops which I could no longer retrieve.

Here are some of the photos each with little stories of its own.

Shot this in 2010 during the first Presidential visit of President Benigno Aquino III. President Rody was a newly-elected Vice-Mayor in this photo. I think he was unintentionally locked out from the Presidential event at the Marco Polo Davao ballroom and proceeded to meet with a small group of demonstrators at the freedom park across Marco Polo Davao.

At the Marco Polo Davao lobby taken a year ago (2015), he was reading a script guide written in a small piece of paper for his video greeting in the occasion of San Beda's alumni homecoming. I was his spiels director.

The "director" and the Mayor, photo-op after the San Beda alumni video shoot (photo taken by Lou Daniel)

At his designated precinct at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo Nat'l. High School. The once reluctant Presidential candidate awaits for the situation in the classroom to calm down, a crowd of photographers and video cameramen had entered the precinct

Squeezing among a crowd of media men to take this shot. The President votes at his precinct at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School. That school chair is now preserved as memento.

The night after the elections, initial tally had him leading the presidential race, He is "ambushed" by reporters at the hotel lobby of the Royal Mandaya Hotel, the girl facing him is his daughter Kitty.

The press conference at the Matina Enclaves on May 16.

Signing a Time Magazine with him as cover 

Veteran photojournalist Rene Lumawag has the biggest collection of Duterte photographs having covered him in the 1980s when he was still the OIC Vice-Mayor. You can get a glimpse of some of the photos in his exhibit at Abreeza Mall (Rody Duterte thru the years) which runs from June 23 to July 6. Shot this scene at the unveiling with  ms. Elizabeth Zimmerman-Duterte as guest-of-honor.