Kai Dana Sorem
Age 2620 Apr 2026
Toboso, Negros Occcidental (Philippines)
Shot
Kai was one of 19 people shot dead in an indiscriminate massacre perpetrated by by the Philippines military on 19th/20th April.
Among the other victims was Maureen Santuyo, a 24 year-old cisgender lesbian woman.
Kai Dana Sorem was a 26-year-old Seattle and Tacoma-based Filipino American activist who was learning from and helping with rural peasant communities on the plantation island of Negros in the Philippines earlier this year. Between April 19 and 20, she and 18 other activists and community organizers were brutally murdered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the municipality of Toboso, Negros Occidental.
Born in Steilacoom and with family in Tacoma, Sorem– a founding member of [student organisation] ABSS [Anakbayan South Seattle (ABSS)] – was described by ABSS members as “loving, patient, and attentive to others.” Diaz recalls: “Kai was one of the first people to bring me into the overseas Filipino youth organizing. She was really instrumental in helping me find my footing and organizing. This work brought us together, and we were organizing together in ABSS for about three years.” Eventually, Sorem was inspired to organize and immerse herself with the people in the Philippines after having visited the country for the first time in 2025 on an Anakbayan exposure trip.
“She was humble. She acknowledged when she could not understand something, and she took the time to really listen and hear someone out,” Diaz recalled. “At the same time, she was very sharp and very firm as a leader and an organizer, and I really admired her ability to not shy away from difficulty, and just really prioritize the needs and interests of the community as a whole.”
Sorem’s dedication and firm commitment to serving and advancing the interests of the most marginalized and most exploited Filipinos brought her back to Negros earlier this year. Meesh Vergara, Chairperson of Malaya Movement Seattle, explained why Sorem was compelled to serve the rural communities of Negros Island: “I was part of the very first Malaya movement immersion trip batch in 2024. In Negros Island, we saw firsthand the land being taken up by development companies and by big landlords, and how ordinary people really struggled to put food regularly on the table.”
The massacre took place against a background of the exploitation of plantation workers and government repression of dissent.
In the 19th century, Negros Island was a frontier that began to be developed by European entrepreneurs and local Filipino elite families to produce and export the in-demand cash crop of the time, sugar. When the Philippines was colonized by the US after the 1898 Spanish-American War, they saw the value of Negros not only as a plantation island, but also of the Philippines as a steady source of migrant labor.
But while Negros became a sugar plantation island that produces and exports most of the country’s sugar to this day, the plantation workers whose labor makes it all possible remains undercompensated and disenfranchised because of the exploitation of landlords and big companies. “The peasant women that we were staying with told us about the military camping in their backyard and intimidating them,” said Vergara. “They just asked us not to forget about them and to really uplift their stories.”
According to a press release from Malaya Seattle, the AFP waged hours of low-flying indiscriminate strafing, firing thousands of bullets that killed Sorem and 18 others, displacing over 650 individuals and 118 families, and illegally detaining 5 organizers.
Victims included Lyle Prijoles, another Filipino American activist based out of Northern California; RJ Ledesma, a youth journalist; Alyssa Alano, a student organizer and leader at University of Philippines Diliman; and Errol Wendel and Maureen Santuyo, both peasant activists. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance, also known as BAYAN) USA and hundreds of other human rights organizations have decried these killings as a grave international human rights violation by Philippine President Marcos Jr., and calling for “Justice for the Negros 19.”
While Sorem’s tragic and premature death was immediately felt by the Filipino community in Seattle and the Puget Sound area, her friends and colleagues want to remember her fondly as a compassionate and dedicated community organizer. “I’m really proud of Kai, having been living with and serving the peasants in Negros, because of its highly exploited and highly militarized nature,” stated Vergara.
https://gossipguy.net/seattle-activist-kai-sorem-killed-by-philippine-military/
https://www.malayamovement.com/statements/justiceforkai
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX77lUSH2I4/
https://x.com/Kaylara0wl/status/2057164812979712014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtCkxk1bqbo
