Lyle Prijoles had a habit of returning to the Philippines. Not for vacation, not for family visits alone — but to sit with fishing communities in Negros, learn from people living in poverty, and advocate for the rights others refused to defend. On April 19, that commitment cost him his life.
The 40-year-old Mira Mesa man was among 19 people killed by the Philippine military in what officials described as an armed encounter with rebels. Prijoles was one of two Americans among the dead. His wife, Marienne Cuison, who spoke from the Philippines after his death, flatly rejected that version of events.
“The narrative that it was a conflict or an encounter — I think is a one-sided narrative. I actually fully disagree.”— Marienne Cuison, wife of Lyle Prijoles
Cuison described her husband as quiet but deeply caring — a man driven by a conviction that those with access to knowledge had a responsibility to share it with those without power. He had been pushing for the passage of the Philippine Human Rights Act, and taught others about the conditions facing marginalized communities in the country.
Friends who knew Prijoles from his time at San Francisco State University remembered a different side of him too — the Comic-Con enthusiast, the gentle classmate who never seemed capable of the violence authorities implied.
“If you know Lyle, he’s a Comic-Con nerd and the most gentle and kind person.”— Melissa Reyes, former SFSU classmate
It was at SFSU, in Asian American Studies classes, where Prijoles and fellow activist Brandon Lee developed what would become lifelong commitments to social justice. That bond proved consequential years later, when Lee was targeted while living in the Philippines — and it was Prijoles who helped organize events to bring him safely back to the United States.
Now, Lee finds himself organizing in reverse. “Now I’m doing the same — organizing events to bring him back home and remember Lyle and call for justice for him,” he said at a vigil held at SFSU last week, where former classmates and friends gathered to mourn.
Why this matters
The killings occurred amid long-standing concerns about extrajudicial violence in the Philippines, particularly in Negros island, where activist communities have reported years of militarization and red-tagging — the labeling of civilians as communist rebels to justify state action against them.
Cuison is now trying to have her husband’s remains returned to San Diego, and the family has set up an online fundraiser to cover the costs. But beyond logistics, she is determined that Lyle’s death not be reduced to a headline or swallowed by the official narrative.
“I would just like people to know more about what he fought for and what he stood for,” she said. “And how he would go back to the Philippines really to integrate and learn more from the poorest of the poor — and help them in any way he could.”
For Cuison, his legacy is not just a memory to preserve. It is an invitation — for people in San Diego, in California, across the diaspora — to look toward Negros and ask what is happening there, and why a man who loved his community enough to die for it is being called something he was not.
