MANILA, Philippines – Rene Lumawag, veteran photographer behind iconic snapshots of President Rodrigo Duterte, passed away on Monday, July 1, around 6:30 pm.

This was confirmed to Rappler by Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Bambam Garcia on Monday.

Garcia said Lumawag succumbed to prostate cancer.

Lumawag had been confined to the hospital in the second week of June. Friends who visited him in the Intensive Care Unit said the veteran photographer had been “makulit” until the end, flashing a thumbs up sign despite being bedridden and even scrutinizing photos of his Malacañang colleagues.

Lumawag is survived by his wife Minerva and their 4 remaining children Renee Bell, An-an, April John, and Tyron.

Duterte’s ‘shutterbug’

Lumawag photographed Duterte for most of his political career, spanning almost 3 decades. From first documenting his days as Davao City OIC vice mayor in 1986, Lumawag followed Duterte to Malacañang where, for a time, he led the pool of Palace photographers.

Almost exactly 3 years ago, he held an exhibit of his iconic photographs in Davao City. The exhibit was attended by Duterte’s former wife, Elizabeth Zimmerman, who had fond stories to tell of Lumawag.

In a 2016 interview with Rappler, Lumawag spoke of his favorite Duterte photograph (a 42-year-old vice mayor Duterte giving the camera a mischievous look) and late dinners in the Duterte home with the man himself after a day’s worth of coverage.

He spoke of his fondness of taking photographs of Duterte’s hospital visits, describing the compassion he saw in the Davao City chief’s actions.

Lumawag has passed away on the first day of the last half of Duterte’s term as president. (SPECIAL COVERAGE: The Halfway Mark)

Asked to describe Duterte’s governance style then, Lumawag shared with Rappler a conversation he had with Duterte. Lumawag said he asked the then-mayor how he would deal with government corruption if he was president of the Philippines.

“Sabi niya, ‘Yung basket ng prutas, huwag mo lang pipili-piliin ‘yung masama, talagang ibuhos mo. Kumbaga, i-overhaul mo.’ That’s what he’s doing now,” Lumawag said.

(He said, ‘That basket of fruits, don’t just take out the rotten ones, pour all the fruits out. In other words, do an overhaul.’ That’s what he’s doing now.)

Lumawag started playing with a camera – Minolta 100X with a 45 mm fixed lens – in 1979. But it was in 1985 when he got his big break as a photojournalist after Reuters asked him to cover a landslide in a gold mine in Diwalwal, Davao del Norte.

A photographer for over 30 years, Lumawag shared the joys of photojournalism (“You will learn to love details.”) and its heartbreaks. As to the latter, Lumawag endured an extraordinarily painful experience.

His own son Gene Boyd, who took up photography like his dad, was shot while on a journalism assignment in Sulu. Gene Boyd was killed after taking photographs of that region’s legendary sunset.

“We have his last frame, the last sunset. The succeeding frames are already blurry,” Lumawag had recalled.

We don’t know what the last frame was in Tay Rene’s camera, but one thing is for sure, images he had taken in his life have immortalized moments in Philippine history. – Rappler.com