The family of a young man severely injured in the Lapu Lapu Festival tragedy says they are not getting the help or the financial support they expected.
“These last 10 months have probably been the absolute worst 10 months of my entire life,” Vanessa Hill, AJ Sico’s girlfriend, told Global News.
Sico suffered a traumatic brain injury, along with multiple broken bones and nerve damage to his right eye, when an SUV drove into the crowd at the Filipino festival on April 26, killing 11 people and injuring more than two dozen others.
He also suffered a massive stroke after his brain injury.
His cousin, 27-year-old Jendhel May Sico, was one of the people killed in the incident.
Sico, 30, is now non-verbal and unable to walk.
“Dealing with things with AJ, everything has been a struggle for us,” Hill said.
“Always, we’re trying to get him the best medical care, the best things to help in his recovery, but we’ve always been met with red tape every step of the way.
“I don’t want to have to be reaching out to the media to be able to get things for AJ to facilitate his healing and like his recovery, but unfortunately, that’s the only way we’ve been able to be heard.”
Hill said it feels like a slap in the face.
“Everybody thinks that the money raised went directly to the victims, and unfortunately, that’s not what happened.”
Following the tragedy last year, United Way BC launched the Kapwa Strong Fund to help everyone affected begin the process of healing.
The Kapwa Strong Fund raised more than $2 million, a large portion of which, $1,574,556.04, went towards grants to 36 agencies.
Here is a breakdown of how that money was distributed to agencies and its intended use.
Hill told Global News that when Sico was first injured, they stayed at the Holiday Inn near Vancouver General Hospital so they could be there for support and to sign off on the surgeries he needed.
“A place like the Holiday Inn, you can’t stay there for a long time,” she said.
“And so we told Filipino BC, ‘Hey, we don’t need anything fancy, we just want somewhere close to stay.’.
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“And I was continually told, ‘Don’t worry about it, like the funding isn’t going to run out for you guys.’. And unfortunately, at the end of the 90 days, they gave us an invoice and said, ‘That’s the extent of our help we can help you with.”
Hill said they received an email saying that Filipino BC had a 90-day policy of being able to help victims and that it had already been extended for them.
“We had so much paperwork that we had to get through in order to get anything from them,” she added.
“It was a lot more work than it was helpful, on top of grieving his cousin Jendhel at the same time.”
Hill said they do not feel like Sico has received any substantial help from Filipino BC.
“We were invoiced $40,000 from them, which is kind of hilarious, because on that invoice, they charged us for things like utensils, forks and spoons, chairs at that place we stayed at, and then we didn’t keep those forks and spoons,” she said.
“They paid for three months of his tube feeding formula, and I would say honestly, that and the housing was the most helpful thing they did, and that was about it.”
Hill said she understands that Filipino BC is not supposed to be a long-term support fund, but thinks they do have a responsibility to the victims, as the Lapu Lapu event was organized and facilitated by them and they received the biggest grant from the United Way Kapwa Strong Fund.
According to Filipino BC’s reports, $451,570 has been earmarked for it from the Kapwa Strong Fund. United Way said those funds were raised at the request of donors.
Chair of Filipino BC, RJ Aquino, told Global News that they have talked to Sico’s family and addressed their concerns directly and discreetly.
“I’m not going to speak publicly about those details,” he said.
“They can continue to speak about those details as much as they want, and they have every right to, but we know that we’re trying to do the right thing that, you know, we’ve, again in the aftermath of all of this, nobody else was in a position to do the things that these victims and families have needed, but we’ve tried to put ourselves in a position to at least highlight the gaps and help them navigate the system.”
Aquino said many organizations have directly dispersed money to victims and families, but Filipino BC must maintain a high level of oversight and transparency over where the money is being spent and used.
“I would say again, the frustration stems from the fact that they’re not getting the help that they need,” Aquino added.
“They’re not, they didn’t get the help that they needed right away, and they’re still not getting the help that they need. So we’re calling on, again, all levels of government to do that. We’ve, you know, we’ve done everything organizationally to try to keep everything transparent and have published our impact report.”
Aquino also said that they have recently assigned an auditor to maintain oversight of their funds and expenditures.
The Canadian Red Cross had raised more than $400,000.
Hill said they received $10,000, most of which went to pay for family members to travel to the Lower Mainland to attend the cousin’s funeral.
For now, Sico’s family is worried about their financial situation and getting AJ the best care they can.
Jhosie Sico, AJ’s mother, told Global News that her son helped the family pay for their home and they are now worried they might lose it.
“We don’t want to lose our house,” she said.
“So the money that we’re getting is not enough, but I still have to pay the rent that he’s supposed to be getting from his income, but he doesn’t have income anymore.”
Jhosie said that they did receive help in the few months following the tragedy, but they feel abandoned now.
“We’re still struggling, and we’re still a victim, but where’s all the money that’s supposed to be helping us?”
She said, adding insult to injury, she was blindsided when she learned Filipino BC is organizing another Lapu Lapu Day Festival.
“There’s a lot of way to make healing or to celebrate, maybe there’s a prayer or something, but not to the extent of the music, dancing and whatever that they want to do,” she said.
Aquino had previously told Global News they had consulted victims.
But Hill questioned whether sending an email a few days before Christmas was considered consultation.
She said it is too early to have another Lapu Lapu Day Festival, adding they need time to heal.
“To hear that another event is going to be put on, in the face of us asking them for help over and over again, is a slap in the face. It’s like we don’t matter,” she said.