By Brandon Lee
Bulatlat.com
As I absorb all of your testimony Lyle, believe me they are mostly good, a few funny ones, I want to offer a few more over the next few days, weeks, months to honor you friend, kasama.
In 2004, you and Alan D welcomed me to the National Democratic movement after our AAS 355 #LakasPamikya class IYKYK.
Bro invited our class to a Balik Sambayanan exposure trip fundraiser at the Lit lounge. You were easy to talk to and you helped process why I had stopped believing in bourgeois liberal democracy. You helped channel my desire for change into action so that I was not stuck on reading books and regurgitating it back.
I asked you if there has ever been a member who is not Filipino in LFS (League of Filipino Students). You responded, “well no…but there could be. Are you interested?”
I said yes and joined. Oftentimes absorbing as much as I could, asking you questions. More times than not I was observing how a genuine people mass organization against imperialism functions. I wanted to take everything I learned and start a student Chinese anti-imperialist mass organization that also serves tenants and workers. My dabbling into building that new mass organization failed because I didn’t have a social investigation and class analysis of the campus and I was doing it alone, which you helped point out.
You saw me wrestle with my identity being non-Filipino in a Filipino organization. Yet, you and Cess invited me to Balik Sambayanan (return to the homeland). I told you it’s not my homeland. And you struggled with me, “Well no it’s’ not your homeland. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to help share what you hear and see from the community integration.” He was sharper than I, despite being younger by four years.
That exposure trip was life changing! You hated that people thought I looked more Filipino than you. You told me that it’s not just how I looked that enabled me to integrate well with the people. You were proud of your Filipino afro although you were always asked to keep it short and neat by your parents. All the people we met, our guides, organizers, and the exploited, oppressed communities on the Nestle picket lines in Laguna; the peasant community fighting land grabbing from a Korean spa in Taal Volcano in Batangus, to the Igorot indigenous peasant community that were militarized and forced by gunpoint to locate a NPA [New People’s Army] camp in Nag-asan, Balbalan; helped us become more firm in sharing their stories and supporting their struggle. We both were shaped by that experience and became more committed to serving the people since hearing the testimonies of the people.
When I left in 2010, you wished the best for me in serving the people in the Philippines! Over the years I would write you letters based on sharing from kasamas that would visit me. I remembered when you met your inaanak, my child, for the first time in 2011, you wished to be closer so that you could visit often.
Nine years later, when I was shot by the 54th Infantry Battalion (IB), you were helping organize around the assassination attempt on my life as I am organizing around your extrajudicial killing and the massacre of the Negros 19. We both share the same violence from the State.
Despite the fact that they dehumanize you and all the Negros 19 as corned beef, there were so many praises of you on Saturday in a vigil that I had to mention some of your faults. I heard how much you have remoulded. You immersed yourself with the poor peasants of Negros and learned about their condition. The youth and solidarity folks you taught or recruited or gave ICHRP orientation had nothing but respect for you. I heard from them how you were instrumental in giving the ICHRP membership orientation and grow the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP US).
Oftentimes doing work behind the scenes, taking photos or doing tech, you helped make our ICHRP assembly a success. When I sang “Bannuar (Martyr)!” the Igorot/ilocano tribute song for martyrs at the assembly, even after 18 years since visiting the Cordillera you were singing right along with me.
Now you and the Negros 19 are the Bannuar whom we pay the highest respect to! You died doing what you believe in, serving the people!
The Negros 19 were massacred on April 19 with indiscriminate strafing by the 79th IB, 33rd infantry brigade Among those murdered, 10 were members of the New People’s Army and 9 were civilians. Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorrem were 2 Filipino American civilians among those massacred. Two additional victims were minors. The manner in which they were massacred bore signs of overkill which is a clear violation of International Humanitarian Law and a war crime.
I miss you Lyle!
You died a bannuar!
A son of Negros and the Philippines!
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