As heels clicked against the hardwood floors of the Redwood Lounge and students and friends sang in remembrance of Lyle Prijoles, his wife Marienne “Yenyen” Cuison was pushing through after an emergency trip to the Philippines.
During a 12-hour gunfight from April 18 to 19, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) killed Prijoles and another American, Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, alongside 17 others on the northeastern coast of the island of Negros. The Filipino government, led by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr., red-tagged Prijoles as a communist, justifying his death as a “victory.” Cuison was originally told that she had only 24 hours to recover his body.
“Our human rights advocates on the ground were able to push for [an] extension, so we were given a little bit more time,” Cuison, a UCSC alum and former advisor for E², said. “But if they didn’t push, we would have been looking at legal parameters on how to get his body out of a mass grave.”
Anakbayan Santa Cruz and Bayanihan, two Pilipinx organizations in Santa Cruz, organized a vigil on May 12 to educate themselves about their community, commemorate and mourn the 19 people killed in Negros.
Attendees built an altar honoring Lyle Prijoles and the Negros 19 with various flowers, handwritten notes and portraits. Included in the altar were movie discs of the original Star Wars trilogy, celebrating Prijoles’ love for the franchise.
Over 70 attendees packed the Redwood Lounge above the Quarry Plaza. Some struggled to find seating and stood quietly around the aisles, next to the pew-like seating.
“This vigil is a mourning process, it’s a grieving process,” said Peerless Morgan, the educational development chair of Anakbayan and a performer at the vigil. “But it’s not a call to give up or give into the pain.”
Unlike more traditional vigils, organizers chose to spend the first 40 minutes educating participants on the injustices that led to the murders.
The AFP claims that all 19 people killed were “combatants.” However, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPA) and the New People’s Army (NPA) report that only 10 “combatants” were killed, and that nine were civilians.
Two were minors. One was a young farmer. One was a University of the Philippines student leader. Two were young agricultural union organizers. One was a community journalist.
Attendees wave goodbye to Marienne “Yenyen” Cuison, Prijoles’ wife who joined the vigil via Zoom.
Misreported information on civilian deaths is an international humanitarian crime. Credible information on the attack came only days later, corroborating the stance of the CPA and NPA after lawyers and human rights activists investigated.
“Throughout the Philippines, here in the U.S., in different cities, there’s been a lot of support, not just for Lyle, but also for Kai, who also passed away as part of the Negros 19,” Cuison said of the two Americans who died in the attack. “We feel the support from everywhere.”
Cuison visited the vigil over zoom, in attendance was Jhordie and Jaremiah, both mentees and friends during her time as a student, Coordinating Director, and later program advisor. Together they have taken over the position she served in for years.
“The lessons and knowledge that she passed on to Jhordie and myself as the program organizers, she left us in a pretty solid state to continue the programs that didn’t require her presence to be there,” said Jaremiah, the current program organizer “She made sure to pass us those lessons and instill that confidence in us to continue this.”
Her Husband, Prijoles went to Negros at the end of March shortly after their third wedding anniversary. They would only exchange a text here or there due to the time differences. Prijoles was a human rights activist who worked for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP). This wasn’t his first community immersion trip. Beginning in 2006, Prijoles regularly traveled for either a few weeks or several months depending on ICHRP’s goals.
Negros is known as the “sugar bowl” of the Philippines, yielding 60 percent of the country’s sugar production. Sixty-three percent of that land is privately owned, and 71 percent of the Negrosian people are reliant on sugar production, placing 97 percent of sugar cane workers dependent on a pakyaw (piece rate) system.
According to Riley Alinsug, a Bayanihan representative and speaker at the vigil, the fear of red-tagging — the practice of labeling activists as terrorists — incentivizes native Filipinos against joining organizations like Anakbayan and connecting with their homeland.
“Why is it that our families choose displacement over choosing to stay home and fight against a government that will beat them with this violence, with this repression?” Alinsug said during the event. They were speaking on the campaign Hindi Krimen Umuwi, “it’s not a crime to go home,” a chant heralded when an activist is either punished or detained for trying to highlight inhumane conditions in their home country.
Peerless leads the attendees in a series of songs. Some attendees sang along, reading from lyric sheets handed out by organizers or their laptops while others stood in silence.
Attendees cried through the chant as they mourned their relatives’ disconnection from home.
Attendees gather around the altar, chanting and raising their fists.
Alinsung expressed that the goal of the event was to “push more people to maintain that connection with their homeland.” Not just in the sense of sharing food, or performing cultural dances, but retaining the question:
“How do we really fight for the liberation of our homelands?”
