What Carries Us Through Our Darkest Days

On Saturday night, April 26, I was getting ready to celebrate my birthday. Julie Kim, a Korean Canadian comedian, invited me and my friends to watch her do a stand-up set at the Vogue Theatre. She would take the stage before the headliner — another one of my favourite Asian comedians — Filipino American JR De Guzman.

Known for performing his comedy with guitar in hand, De Guzman sang and spoke laughter into the hearts of a sold-out crowd where Filipino representation was loud and proud. The inviting and warm nature of his jokes were inclusive and affirming of the range of lived experiences and identities in the crowd.

As we left the theatre after the show, audience members checked their phones to find dozens of missed calls and texts. Their friends and relatives had been frantically trying to get a hold of them to ask if they were alive and safe.

While we were in the theatre, a car was driven through a crowd of people at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in East Vancouver, killing 11 and injuring many more. Love and laughter quickly turned into devastation and panic.

A culture of care

There’s an ethic of sharing and solidarity that is central to Filipino culture, which was apparent in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. The community was quick to act and step in to help. People started fundraisers, meal trains and planned vigils across the country and around the globe.

There has also been an outpouring of free or heavily discounted local therapy services for those who were at the event that day.

Premier David Eby noted in a press conference that as quickly as hospitals had warned of long wait times in the wake of the attack, they were also quick to update that off-duty medical professionals, care aides and other hospital workers in sanitization and food services had called in to make themselves available to help with the aftermath of the incident — many of them Filipino.

In times of darkness, we find light by being together. The incident took place a five-minute drive from my house, and the following day, a large crowd gathered at Kensington Park to be in community with others and send prayers for both those lost and those left behind.

Community organizer Sammie Jo Rumbaua led the group in an act of solidarity based on the Tagalog phrase, isang bagsak. A slogan from the Filipino diaspora’s civil rights movement, isang bagsak means “When one falls we all fall, but when one rises, we all rise.”

Rumbaua instructed the crowd that she would ask them to start clapping at different times and cadences, eventually syncing up beats of their collective claps: “We’re all on different paths. We don’t know what to do, we’re all confused. But as we clap together, we get synchronized, we get louder and louder, and when I yell isang bagsak, we all try to land on one clap.”

The Lapu-Lapu Day festival was designed to be a welcoming, inclusive event. Many attendees and those hurt or killed in the car-ramming attack were multigenerational families, immigrants and even visitors to Vancouver. But Rumbaua reminded us that in the Filipino community, we are all one.

The moment at the Kensington Park vigil for isang bagsak was the real-life embodiment of what it means to be Filipino and to be in community with Filipinos — to care for your community and take collective action, in unity.

I’m Chinese Canadian, and the Filipino community has been a large part of my upbringing from friendship, culture, music, food and community — in the broadest but also most intimate sense.

As a teen, I took voice lessons from a Filipino vocal coach and from there would be invited to meet a warm and welcoming community of singers that were far more talented than me (and I wasn’t mad about it because I was in such awe of their abilities).

One of my best friends from university introduced me to several Filipino comfort foods. Whenever I saw her mom, I would greet her as Tita, or auntie, in Tagalog. Her love and pride for her heritage stems far beyond sharing it with me, as she is currently working on getting her manuscript of young adult fiction based on Filipino culture published. Her name is C.H. Barron, so keep an eye out for her future published works.

That same friend has helped me through so many stages of my life, including having been instrumental in helping me grow Cold Tea Collective, a media outlet that focuses on stories for and by the next generation of the Asian diaspora.

The stories that we’ve published from the Filipino community, specifically those based in and around Vancouver, have been at the heart of building capacity for cultural learning, celebration, compassion and connection for nearly a decade.

Over the years we’ve published stories about Filipino wedding traditions, connecting to Filipino culture through foliage, de-centring whiteness in Filipino representation and designing Batok (traditional Filipino tattoos).

Last year, we published a story celebrating the first Lapu-Lapu Day in Vancouver.

Now, as I move through the grief of the 2025 festival tragedy, I need to revisit a story on Indigenous Filipino healing practices for our community.

What Lapu-Lapu Day was meant to be

If you conduct an online search for “Lapu-Lapu Day,” the results are mostly about the recent Vancouver attack, so I also want to share what the celebrations were meant to be about.

On April 27, 2023, the province of British Columbia officially declared April 27 to be Lapu-Lapu Day. Led by Filipino BC, the day celebrates the local Filipino community; they are the third-largest Asian diaspora population in Vancouver.

The day is named after Indigenous Filipino Chief Datu Lapu-Lapu, who fought against the Spanish colonization of the Philippines led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

“He teaches us that the strength of a united people, bound by a shared commitment to their heritage, can withstand any challenge,” Filipino BC organizers wrote on their website to explain the day. “His story reminds us that even against overwhelming odds, the flame of resistance can burn brightly, lighting the way for future generations to proudly carry forward their cultural heritage and independence.”

Lapu-Lapu Day was a celebration of culture and community. Filipino BC and other community organizers and individuals have quickly switched gears to offer support. Filipino BC has opened a temporary “Resilience Centre” in the Killarney Secondary School cafeteria for people to gather and access supports, and they have launched a Kapwa Strong Fund with United Way BC to support community members beyond their immediate needs. Grassroots organizers have assembled a live directory of community support and mutual aid efforts are ongoing. Gatherings have also been held at various community spaces and campuses across the province.

The province declared May 2 “an official day to honour the lives lost and people impacted by the tragic events that occurred on April 26, 2025,” shares Filipino BC. The public can also sign a book of condolence at the B.C. legislature in Victoria or online, and Vancouver residents can sign a condolence book at Vancouver city hall through May 15 or online.

Now more than ever, we need to show up for our Filipino friends, family and neighbours. I still can’t help but feel helpless, but what has helped me personally is writing, connecting and creating space for our Filipino community to share what’s on their hearts and minds.

A poem by sol diana is one form of expression that has resonated with me and the wider community searching for answers.

the garden on fraser and 41st

Bitter taste on my tongue when I call my own people “resilient”.
I prefer to call us by something else:

kapwa; “a shared self”.

On the news, they named Saturday the darkest day in Vancouver’s history.
On Sunday, the candles we ignited turned Kensington Park into the night sky.

We clapped at the vigil, crescendoing into an
isang bagsak; “one down”,
as in, when one falls, we all fall.
Conversely, we rise together.
And on Sunday? We sounded like thunder.

On Saturday, our home was turned into a crime scene.
On Sunday, we laid flowers to rest
and turned Fraser and 41st into a garden.

Republished with permission by the author, sol diana.