August 2025 — The Canadian Filipino community will long remember the shocking human tragedy that happened this year on April 26 shortly after 8 p.m. when a driven black SUV hit a throng of children and adults still gathered at the site of the concluding Filipino Lapu-Lapu Day block party street festival in Vancouver.
It was a joyful day of community celebration that turned into a tragic night of senseless killing and critical injury of children as young as five and adults as old as 65. The count: 11 dead, 33 in critical and serious conditions, and dozens more with non-life-threatening injuries! Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai called this mass casualty phenomenon 'the darkest day in (the) city's history.'
Although most of the casualties were residents of Metro Vancouver, the outpouring of support came from within and beyond the confines of the area. Canada’s Prime Minister, British Columbia’s Premier, Vancouver’s Mayor, and leaders of other political parties, including the Philippine President and His Majesty the King of Britain at once publicly expressed their grief and conveyed their condolences.
Intuitively, the magnitude of lives lost and the scope of injuries sustained would have, even alone, readily overwhelmed anyone who came to know. Coupled that with the awareness of how they came about would have most certainly magnified the depth of emotional pain and trauma experienced, particularly among those immediately impacted – the victims, their families and close friends, the festival organizers, the first responders on the scene and the emergency medical/surgical and other healthcare staff at the hospitals. All these must have been experienced by the community.
Likewise overwhelmed and emotionally paralyzed, our editorial staff finally managed to console each other the following morning and expressed via e-mail our deep sense of loss: “a shocking tragedy; unthinkable and profoundly disturbing; nothing can ease our pain and sorrow; even this grief will pass eventually and the Filipino indomitable spirit will prevail; but for now, we cry.”
Our cry of anguish led us to ask: Can we, individually and as a community, ever recover and heal from such a senseless and profoundly disturbing mass casualty experience? If so, how?
In response, the editorial instinct of CanadianFilipino.Net (CFNet) – the online newsmagazine of the Maple Bamboo Network Society of British Columbia – went into full drive. With the leadership of our Editor and the expertise of our Director of Fundraising and Development, CFNet conceived and gave birth to our project, Healing Through Kapwa: A Storytelling and Solidarity Series for the Filipino Community.
That is: 1) to publish stories of grief, healing, and community resilience while offering trauma-informed resources and culturally relevant narratives; and 2) to process grief, share stories, and reflect on resilience, anchored in the Filipino values of kapwa (shared identity), dama (emotional resonance) and bayanihan (collective care).
In essence, to create a healing space for development and nurture of empathy, compassion and connectedness within and beyond the Canadian Filipino community through a culturally rooted platform.
We are grateful to United Way British Columbia for its timely and generous support. With the signing of the Letter of Agreement on the grant award on July 25 and the guidance of our Editor Emeritus, the CFNet Team determined to kick-start the project beginning with this edition. We are inspired. We invite members of the Canadian Filipino community, nationwide, to be also inspired and to share their talent and time. With broad community participation, we envision to publish varied perspectives with every issue throughout this year-long storytelling journey, using varied writing formats: essays, interviews and reflections from contributors.
At year-end, CFNet hopes to distill a prescription for healing from a mass casualty experience; provide practical wisdom and creative guidance on public safety and preparedness; and contribute to the body of knowledge on healing from mass tragic loss and trauma through kapwa – all in the service of the impacted Canadian Filipino community and their fellow Canadians.
Editor's note: Dr. Rey D. Pagtakhan, P.C., O.M., LL.D., Sc.D., M.D. M.Sc. is a retired lung specialist, professor of child health, and former MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and cabinet minister. He graduated from the University of the Philippines, did postgraduate training and studies at the Children’s Hospitals of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and spent a sabbatical year as Visiting Professor at the University of Arizona Medical Center. He is the author of articles and chapters in medical journals and textbooks and columnist for community newsmagazines. Widely lectured in Canada and abroad, he spoke in June 2003 on “The Global Threat of New Infectious Diseases” at the G-8 Science Ministers/Advisors Carnegie Group Meeting in Berlin. He volunteers on the Advisory Council of Immigration Partnership Winnipeg and the Board of St. Paul’s College Foundation at the University of Manitoba.
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