Vancouver Filipino Celebration Upended By Deadly Attack
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 28 Apr, 2025

Eleven people were tragically killed when an SUV plowed into BC's second annual Lapu-Lapu Day Block Party.

A joyous Filipino heritage street festival in Vancouver, British Columbia on Saturday turned deadly when a man intentionally plowed his SUV into the crowd, killing eleven and injuring many more.  The event was British Columbia's second annual Lapu-Lapu Day Block Party, which drew over 100,000 total attendees throughout the day. In a press conference, Interim Police Chief Steve Rai described the preceding events as "the darkest day in our city's history." The suspect, 30 year-old Kai-Ji Adam Lo is believed to have acted alone.

Just two years ago, elected officials in British Columbia signed a proclamation officially establishing April 27 as Lapu-Lapu Day. Per the proclamation, signed by BC’s Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, “Lapu-Lapu Day is an opportunity to honour Lapu-Lapu, an inspirational Indigenous leader of the Philippines, to learn more about the history of British Columbians of Filipino heritage, and to celebrate their contributions to the prosperity of the province.” Chief Lapu-Lapu defeated and killed a band of colonizers and their leader Ferdinand Magellan in Spain’s attempt to take over the Philippines' island of Mactan in 1921. 

The website for Saturday's event, which was hosted by Filipino BC, described it as “A block party for everyone.” British Columbia is home to 174,000 people of Filipino descent, which accounts for 2.5% of the province’s entire population. 

President Trump took to social media the next day to decry the US’s own efforts to celebrate Indigenous communities, though his post was not necessarily related to the attack. "I'm bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes. The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” Trump posted on Truth Social, a reference to “Indigenous People’s Day,” which, in recent years, has replaced Columbus Day in hundreds of cities. The post continued “They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but 'WOKE,' or even worse, nothing at all!”