Filipino students at McMaster leading event today to remember victims of Lapu-Lapu Day attack
CBC
A gathering led by Filipino groups at McMaster University is aiming to honour the 11 people killed in Vancouver during the Lapu-Lapu Day event last month.
The groups began organizing after realizing there was a need in Hamilton for "a space for us to connect and check in with how people are, because no one's checking in [on us]," said Anabelle Ragsag, a PhD candidate at McMaster's School of Social Work.
The gathering takes place Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. within McMaster's Office of Community Engagement at 8 Mayfair Crescent.
It's being held exactly two weeks after 11 people were killed and dozens were injured on April 26, when an SUV was driven into a crowded Lapu-Lapu Day festival.
Ragsag said she felt "selfish" at first for feeling grief over the attack.
"I was feeling that I'm mourning and I am angry and I feel just in a way scared for my daughter, even if [she wasn't in immediate danger]," she told CBC Hamilton.
She said when someone called this feeling "secondary grief," her feelings started to click.
Five-year-old Katie Le was the youngest victim of the attack along with her parents, Richard Le, 47, and Linh Hoang, 30.
Glitza Daniela Samper, her mother Glitza Maria Caicedo, and her father, Daniel Samper — a family from Colombia — were also among those killed.
Fundraisers have been set up for all the victims, which also include Maria Victoria Bjarnason, a mother visiting from the Philippines, Jendhel May Sico, Rizza Pagkanlungan, a "loving wife," and "devoted sister," Jenifer Darbellay, a Vancouver mother of two, and Kira Salim, a school counsellor from Brazil.
The accused attacker, Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder.
Saturday's gathering, organized by Filipino McMaster social work students and faculty, the McMaster Filipino Network, and the Filipino McMaster Student Association, is called Tuloy po kayo — meaning "come in," in the Tagalog language.
The event will be the second in the city where residents came together to mourn since April 26. A community vigil, or Luksang Bayan, was held at Bayfront Park last Sunday.
Ragsag said this weekend's gathering aims for people to be able to "check in with one another" and while it is open for everyone, it will be student-centred.
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