Duterte's crackdown: 6 stories from the front lines
Updated 0320 GMT (1120 HKT) September 4, 2016
Manila, the Philippines (CNN)Lifeless bodies lying on the streets of the Philippines are a visceral sign of new President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.
So far more than 1,900 people have died. Of those more than 700 have been killed in police operations since Duterte took office in late June, according to police statistics. Many of the unsolved deaths are attributed to vigilantes.
Duterte's tough talk on the country's drug and crime problems won him the election and, 60 days on from his inauguration, he remains extremely popular.
"Double your efforts. Triple them, if need be. We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars -- or below the ground, if they so wish," he said in his July 25 State of the Nation speech.
A Senate inquiry is underway into the police and the extrajudicial killings. Police Chief Ronald Dela Rosa told the committee there was no shoot to kill order, but people are happy with what the police are doing, despite mistakes by officers. "We are only human...We admit we make mistakes, we are not perfect," he said.
Dela Rosa said that about 300 of his officers were suspected of involvement in the drug trade and would be relieved of their duties and tried in court.
But for all the plaudits, including a 91% approval rating President Duterte received for cracking down on drug dealers and addicts, there are families heartbroken,jails swamped, rehab centers overwhelmed.
CNN spent a week in Manila and met six people living and working close to the bloodstained sidewalks.
We feel already that there's something different in us'
Raffy Lerma, a crime beat photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
On the streets of the working class Manila neighborhood of Tondo, we find the victim face down in a trash-strewn stairwell, one of his flip flops lying meters away, in a rutted, rain-soaked alley.
There's a small, cheap revolver next to his lifeless hand. He's the victim of a police "buy-bust."
Police on the scene say he got suspicious while selling drugs to an undercover officer and drew his weapon. The officer, they say, had no choice but to shoot him.
I'm out shadowing Raffy Lerma, a photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, on his nightly beat. He spends night after night covering violent deaths like this one.
An unnamed man, killed by police in what they say was a legitimate shooting during a "buy-bust" operation
He's best known for his image of Jennilyn Olayres, a Manila woman he photographed cradling the body of her partner, suspected drug pusher Michael Siaron.
It's a picture that helped bring the wave of drug-related killings to international attention.
Lerma's covered natural disasters before, with higher death tolls. But this time it's different. "In this war we're also witnessing the devastation of these men's families. It's traumatizing," he says.
Lerma says he's seen more deaths since President Duterte's war on drugs began in June, than he did in an entire year covering the overnight crime beat as a rookie photographer 10 years ago.
"I want drugs to stop but not how it's being done. I'm not for killing people," Lerma says.
"The scary thing is that for every day that passes there will be more deaths. Can we take this for six years?" he asks, referring to the standard presidential term.
He says there are strong bonds between him and other crime beat photographers.
"We support each other mentally and emotionally. One time we didn't cover the deaths out on the streets, we just talked; shared experiences."
But he's worried that it might be too late; the emotional toll already taken.
"We feel already that there's something different in us."
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