A woman lays flowers at a memorial during a vigil on a provincial day of mourning for the victims of the vehicle-ramming attack in late April at the Filipino community’s Lapu Lapu Day festival, in Vancouver, on Friday, May 2, 2025.
A woman lays flowers at a memorial during a vigil on a provincial day of mourning for the victims of the vehicle-ramming attack in late April at the Filipino community’s Lapu Lapu Day festival, in Vancouver, on Friday, May 2, 2025.
By Monica Anne Batac and Clement Nocos, Contributors
Monica Anne Batac is a social work professor at the University of Manitoba and a co-founder and co-organizer of the Filipino Canadian Social and Community Workers Network
Clement Nocos is the Director of Policy and Engagement for the Broadbent Institute, and Vice Chair of the Filipino Canadian Civic Action Network stewardship group.
After tragedy struck the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver on April 26, the word 鈥渞esilience鈥 has come up again and again to describe the affected Filipino Canadian community across the country 鈥 much to its frustration. Resilience, after all, is a familiar word to Filipinos around the world, who endure hardships like family separation, low pay jobs, and precarious status throughout the diaspora, just to make ends meet for themselves and their families. Filipinos in Canada are also familiar with the resilience narrative 鈥 but we refuse to be defined by it.
The Filipino Canadian community does not need praise for our ability to survive; we demand change to get at the root causes of injustice. Resilience should not be the standard by which our dignity is measured, because resilience is neither part of a policy or safety plan, nor is it justice. Yet, in commenting on the horrors from the Lapu-Lapu Day tragedy, governments, media and those sympathetic to this widespread pain and trauma deploy or drop 鈥渞esilience鈥 in their statements and speeches as a default approach to empathizing with Filipino Canadians. We echo many calls and critiques from others in our community: we are tired of this view and urge us to abandon this framing.
Lapu-Lapu Day was organized by the Filipino Canadian Community and Cultural Society of BC (Filipino BC) to creatively offer a different point of view: instead of relying on an overused resilience narrative, the festival showcased and celebrated the joy, cultural wealth, and leadership from our community that is nearly one million strong across the country.
From the new attention that has come in the face of tragedy, Filipino Canadians are pushing back against the resilience narrative. With a new federal government, Filipino Canadians are instead demanding support and investment. Our ability to endure hardships, systemic barriers, and structural inequity can no longer be normalized and celebrated. Our large community, spread far and wide across Canada鈥檚 cities, rural and remote communities, and even the Far North, is vastly under-represented in the Canadian policy-making process, and seldom has its values, needs, and desired solutions reflected in public policy and governance.
It has been a struggle to mobilize government support to build a cultural centre in B.C. In Ontario, immigration struggles have led to nurses returning to the Philippines amid health care staffing shortages. Loved ones pass away while waiting for family reunification backlogs to clear. As our community consistently grieves, creatively navigates, and strategically manoeuvres to lessen the impact of inequitable policies, governments at all levels fail us. They make meagre promises on mental health care, change immigration rules without consulting the community, and make cuts to services like public health care and education, critical sectors that employ many members of our community. The Governments of British Columbia and Manitoba have begun pledging support to the direct victims of the tragedy, but more is needed to help the community grow and overcome its challenges.
According to research, Filipino Canadians are more likely to face worse outcomes for the next generation compared to other newcomer groups. As our community continues to grow past one million in Canada, we cannot lose future generations to inaction by policymakers.
In the wake of this tragedy, Filipino Canadians are calling for real action from all levels of administration, and this includes the federal government. In a recent public letter to the prime minister, Filipino Canadians and our allies are demanding more investment in Canada鈥檚 cultural communities, that includes building safer spaces for public events. There are also calls to make investments in mental health and community-based responses and decrease reliance on policing for the security of these communities. We want to encourage and grow community celebrations, such as the next Lapu-Lapu Day in Vancouver, and in cities across the country.
Canadians are coming together to grieve and mourn all the lives lost and impacted by the Lapu-Lapu Day festival tragedy. The incident exposes failures of government-funded mental health co-ordination, crisis response, and public safety planning. Beyond celebrating our cultures, Canada鈥檚 diverse immigrant and racialized communities are in dire need of support and investment to meet the promises of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. If governments across Canada are to win back the trust of one million Filipino Canadians, we want to see more than replications of the resilience story 鈥 we want to see tangible, meaningful actions and structural change.
Monica Anne Batac is a social work professor at the University of Manitoba and a co-founder and co-organizer of the Filipino Canadian Social and Community Workers Network
Clement Nocos is the Director of Policy and Engagement for the Broadbent Institute, and Vice Chair of the Filipino Canadian Civic Action Network stewardship group.
Opinion articles are based on the author鈥檚 interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
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