Two U.S. citizens killed in Philippine clash with communist rebels

Two Americans died in the Philippines last month during a firefight between the Philippine Army and suspected members of a communist insurgency.

Lyle Prijoles, 40, and transgender woman Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, 26, were among 19 people killed in the April 19 clash in Toboso, Negros Occidental. The Philippine government’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict said the dead were enemy combatants in an operation against the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The NTF-ELCAC noted that the two U.S. citizens were the latest foreigners to die in the long-running conflict. It said their deaths should prompt reflection on how involvement in certain networks can lead to exposure to dangerous environments.

Human rights groups and the NPA said the pair were civilian activists who posed no military threat. The NPA acknowledged that 10 of those killed were its fighters but maintained the rest, including Prijoles and Sorem, were noncombatants.

Prijoles, a Filipino American born and raised in San Diego, California, became involved in left-wing activism after attending San Francisco State University around 2004. He joined the League of Filipino Students and later took part in trips to the Philippines organized by Bayan USA. The Philippine government has accused both groups of serving as fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Prijoles had also been linked to Anakbayan, a left-wing youth organization. Reports said he may have held animosity toward the Philippine military after a 2019 assassination attempt on a friend who chaired the U.S. chapter of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.

Sorem, a Filipino American from Seattle, first became active in politics as a legislative page for the Washington State Democratic Party. She later joined left-wing Filipino diaspora groups while attending Central Washington University and founded the South Seattle chapter of Anakbayan. In 2025 she traveled to the Philippines on an exposure trip, and by 2026 she had moved there full time to work as an organizer.