Two American citizens have lost their lives in the Philippines amid a military clash that authorities claim involved groups linked to communism.
Lyle Prijoles, aged 40, and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, a 26-year-old transgender woman, were among 19 fatalities resulting from a firefight last month between the Philippine Army and alleged members of a communist insurgency.
These Filipino Americans, born in the United States, have become central figures in a contentious incident. Some critics assert that Prijoles and Sorem were combatants for the New People’s Army (NPA), the military branch of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which the U.S. State Department recognizes as a foreign terrorist organization. However, human rights organizations and the NPA reportedly argue that the two were civilian activists who did not pose any military threat.
As reported by the City Journal, Prijoles and Sorem were initially introduced to leftist ideologies through college-affiliated institutions. Critics claim these institutions facilitated their path to involvement with organizations that the Philippine government believes act as proxies for the CPP.
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Youth from the local Filipino community, including members of Anakbayan Alberta, expressed their reactions during a protest held on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
“This brings to two (2) the number of U.S. citizens—Lyle Prijoles and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem—who died in the same incident, a development that highlights the increasing involvement of individuals from outside the Philippines in local armed hostilities,” the Philippines’ National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said.
“The presence of two American fatalities in a single encounter should prompt careful reflection on how involvement in certain activities or networks may lead to unintended exposure to dangerous environments.”
On April 19, Philippine troops engaged in an armed encounter in Toboso, Negros Occidental, according to the NTF-ELCAC. The agency characterized the 19 dead as enemy combatants during an operation aimed at dismantling the decades-long communist insurgency in the Philippines.
On the other hand, family members and human rights advocates reportedly described Prijoles and Sorem as dedicated civilian community activists. The NPA acknowledged that 10 of those killed were members of its armed revolutionary force, but claimed the remaining victims — including several activists such as Prijoles and Sorem — posed no military threat, the San Francisco Standard reported.
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Members of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) from various schools and universities clash with the police in Manila on Nov. 13, 2025. (NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In 2012, Prijoles, a Filipino American born and raised in San Diego, California, was involved with Anakbayan, which translates to “Children of the Nation,” a prominent left-wing youth and student organization founded in the Philippines in 1998. Anakbayan-USA operates across several major U.S. college campuses and has drawn scrutiny from critics over its opposition to U.S. involvement in the Philippines.
His activism reportedly began after attending San Francisco State University around 2004, when he joined the League of Filipino Students (LFS), a left-wing political alliance rooted in Marxist, Leninist and Maoist ideology, the City Journal said.
After 2006, Prijoles reportedly made several trips to the Philippines organized by Bayan USA, another left-wing activist network. The Philippine government has alleged that both organizations function as fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
Prijoles also may have harbored animosity toward the Armed Forces of the Philippines after his friend — the father of his godchild and chairperson of the U.S. chapter of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines — survived a 2019 assassination attempt that left him paralyzed, according to City Journal.
Philippine Navy personnel are deployed to the area as members of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) from various schools and universities march towards the U.S. Embassy in Manila on Nov. 13, 2015. (George Calvelo/NurPhoto)
Meanwhile, Kai Dana Sorem was a Filipino American from Seattle whose political development was initially shaped by a search for personal and cultural identity, according to advocacy group Malaya Movement.
Her early political involvement reportedly included serving as a legislative page for the Washington State Democratic Party. Sorem later deepened her activism within left-wing Filipino diaspora organizations while attending the Central Washington University in 2020. She later launched the South Seattle chapter of Anakbayan, Malaya Movement said.
In 2025, Sorem reportedly traveled to the Philippines on a U.S.-based exposure trip, and by 2026, she had relocated to the country full-time to work as an organizer.
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