On March 31, 2026, the Media Freedom Coalition, alongside the Embassy of Ukraine in the Philippines, organised an event titled “Parallel Frontlines: Journalistic Documentation from Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine and the Philippine Drug War,” to examine how frontline reporting can preserve truth, support justice, and contribute to accountability.
The discussion brought together Filipino photojournalists who documented the Philippine drug war and Ukrainian experts who have documented Russia’s full-scale invasion to explore the essential role played by journalistic documentation.
In a recorded opening message, Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, underscored the growing risks faced by journalists globally and the centrality of their work in documenting abuses.
“Journalists are on the frontline of these conflicts and deserve the protection of the international community,” she said.
Kennedy noted that without journalists, “the international community wouldn’t know the reality of the violations taking place,” and warned that disinformation and harassment against reporters continue to erode both justice and public trust.
The first panel focused on the experience of Filipino photojournalists who covered the drug war under former President Rodrigo Duterte. Speakers Raffy Lerma, Jun Sepe, and Ciriaco Santiago III from the Photojournalists Center of the Philippines reflected on the physical danger, emotional toll, and ethical weight of documenting thousands of killings.
Lerma recalled that, “We covered, we documented as much as we can in the hope it would stop, but it didn’t, it just continued.”
Sepe, who also documented the drug war extensively, reflected on the evidentiary value of photographs and video. He described journalistic images as an “indexical record” — a visual trace of what happened on the ground.
“Whatever you take becomes a record in images,” he said. “It’s up to the courts, the future, or even now to the ICC, to be able to use these indexical records.”
Ciriaco “June” Santiago III spoke about how his role evolved from documenting victims of the drug war to building spaces for healing, remembrance, and community engagement. His project, Silingan Coffee, employs drug war victims and survivors and serves as a space for storytelling and memory work.
“We always say ‘never forget,'” he said. “But the question is: how?”
Santiago explained that over time he came to believe that documentation alone was not enough if it was not paired with dignity, livelihood, and public education.
“When people say drug war, it should not only mean killings,” he said. “It should also lead to understanding of the system as a whole. It should lead to the advancement of human rights consciousness.”
The second panel turned to Ukraine and featured Dmytro Koval and Oksana Pokalchuk, Co-Executive Directors of Truth Hounds, an organisation that works on documenting and investigating international crimes and other serious human rights violations committed during the armed conflicts in Ukraine and other regions of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. They described how documentation has developed as a key part of accountability efforts since Russia first occupied Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014, and even more so since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
“For journalists, the core purpose is to tell the story and to keep the interest in Ukraine going,” Koval said.
He emphasized that the process of turning documentation into evidence requires rigor, method, and care, while also cautioning that unofficial documentation can create complications if not properly handled.
Still, he was clear that preserving truthful records is essential.
“It’s important to have at least some depository of information, speaking truth,” he said.
Pokalchuk stressed that however sophisticated digital tools become, frontline reporting remains irreplaceable.
“We still need people being present on the ground and doing classical, very well-known journalistic work,” she said.
Referring to wartime reporting from besieged Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol, Pokalchuk said such documentation is critical in countering propaganda and preserving an accurate account of events.
“Thanks to these videos, to these materials, we can see what really was there,” she said.
In the joint discussion, speakers from both countries highlighted the risks journalists continue to face — from physical danger in conflict zones to online harassment, misogynistic abuse, burnout, and trauma.
The discussion also touched on the challenge of public disengagement, disinformation, and the normalization of violence. Several speakers argued that documentation must be paired with media literacy, historical preservation, and long-term public education.
Lerma, while acknowledging the scale of the challenge, expressed cautious faith in persistence. “It’s not all lost,” he said. “You just keep on doing things.”
In her closing remarks, Ambassador Yuliia Fediv, Ambassador of Ukraine to the Philippines, emphasized the value of cross-border solidarity and people-to-people cooperation.
“People-to-people networks matter even more,” she said, adding that grassroots actors “build the roots for the state bodies and make our states more resilient inside and outside.”
