Victoria, April 27, 2026 — Twenty-four hours after the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver that took the lives of 11 and wounded many more, community members gathered at the steps of the BC Legislature to mourn the lives hurt and lost by the tragedy.
Lapu-Lapu Day commemorates the successful resistance of Indigenous Filipinos in 1521, led by chieftain Datu Lapu-Lapu, against Spanish colonizers on the island of Mactan. For the Filipino community, Lapu-Lapu Day is a remembrance of our people’s bravery and resilience.
Lapu-Lapu Day was officially recognized by British Columbia in 2023, marking this year’s Lapu-Lapu Day festival as only the second since the event’s inception.
Gwen, an Anakbayan Victoria member who spoke last night shares, “Ang pagdiriwang [na ito] ay isang malaking bahagi ng ating kultura upang punan ang pangungulila ng bawat Pilipinong naririto sa bayang tinubuan. Ngunit ang [sumalubong] sa ating mga kababayan ay ang kalunos-lunos na pangyayari tulad nito.” (Festivities [like this] are a huge part of our culture and we look for these kinds of celebrations to find a sense of home while in the diaspora, as many of us must leave our homelands behind. But upon arrival, we are met with tragic incidents, such as this.)
This year’s Lapu-Lapu Day festival was devastated by a fatal car attack that led to the confirmed deaths of 11 people aged between 5 to 65 years old. The vigil at the BC Legislature in Victoria was paralleled by vigils in Vancouver and Surrey, with more vigils to come across Canada in the coming days.
The “Luksang Bayan” or National Day of Mourning vigil in Victoria was announced the
day after the tragedy and just over 3 hours before the event’s commencement yet
welcomed a crowd of over 150 people. The moving display of community care and
solidarity embodied the Filipino spirit of pakikipagkapwa — the acknowledgement of
grief as collective, to hurt as your neighbour hurts and to mourn as they mourn.
The Victoria vigil heard statements from Anakbayan Victoria, and BAYAN Canada, as
well as the Bayanihan Cultural and Housing Society and the Honourable Raj Chouhan
on behalf of the Legislative Assembly. The vigil’s speakers reminded us of the power of
the Filipino people when united and the tenacity that we inherited from our
ancestors–tenacity which solidifies our resolve to persist together, in grief as in joy.
The vigil was organized through the efforts of Anakbayan Victoria and BAYAN Canada
members as well as Saanich Councillor Zac de Vries, with financial support from the
Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (BC) Society.
Anakbayan Victoria and BAYAN Canada encourage community members to remember
that grief is love with no place to go, and one powerful way to metabolize grief is to give
it shelter in the organizing spaces that strive to improve the material conditions of the
Filipino people. It is at heightened times like this that it becomes integral to collectively
come together and push back against hateful and divisive rhetoric against other
communities that only aims to perpetuate the on-going cycle of harm and violence.
Community members are invited to connect with these organizations to unite in further
care and support for Filipinos in Canada and back home in the Philippines.
(Eileen Tiamzon, [email protected], Anakbayan Victoria)
