Maureen Santuyo: Artist and peasant organizer through and through

MANILA, Philippines – In one of her earliest protests, Maureen Keil Santuyo raised a placard calling for workers to unite and advocating an increase in the minimum wage.

That was in September 2021, during the commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the Martial Law declaration, where fellow protesters wore face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Santuyo, who was among the 19 people killed in a military operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental, in April, started her activism with Anakbayan. She helped empower the youth in her community in the lead up to the 2022 general elections, before branching out to organizing call center agents in Makati.

But in her exploration of social issues and immersion in various communities, Mau, as she was fondly called by those who knew her, realized her main advocacy: organizing basic sectors, particularly farmers. 

Santuyo joined the National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates (NNARA) Youth in 2023, before becoming a full-time peasant rights advocate a year later.

By October 2025, she decided to integrate more closely with marginalized agrarian communities, with Negros becoming her unexpected last.

“Very remarkable kay Mau, at kapansin-pansin ito sa history niya, na wala siyang pinipiling laban kung alam niyang mas ikakabuti ito ng pinakamalawak na mamamayang Pilipino,” current NNARA Youth chairperson Matty Miguel told Rappler. 

(A very remarkable aspect of Mau’s history as an activist was that she did not choose her fights, as long as she knew they were for the betterment of Filipino society.)

Santuyo would have been 25 this June, but she faced her tragic end last April 19 doing community organizing work among the rural poor in Negros Occidental. 

The Commission on Human Rights has mounted an independent investigation as nine of those killed were civilians, including Santuyo, UP student leader Alyssa Alano, journalist RJ Nichole Ledesma, and Fil-Am activist Lyle Prijoles.

Caring, sensitive to people

Friends and peers of Santuyo remember her as a caring, sensitive, and creative person who fought for peasants’ rights until the end.

Miguel Ochobillo, a youth activist, had only a few conversations with Santuyo during protests and online, but he considers them among his most important.

Ochobillo said the application process to transfer to the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) was a “very uncertain time” for him, to which Santuyo helped him navigate. Both of them got admission letters in 2024. 

Ochobillo took Bachelor of Education Studies, while Santuyo enrolled in the two-year Associate in Arts degree program.

“Malaki ang puso niya para sa mga tao… Alam kong naipamalas niya ang pakialam niya sa akin, saka sa kapwa niya kabataan, hanggang sa magsasaka ng Negros,” Ochobillo told Rappler.

(She had a big heart for people. I know she showed her concern to me, to her fellow youth, up to the farmers in Negros.)

“Kahit hindi mo sabihin na may problema ka, nagme-message siya sa’yo para mangamusta. Alam niya lagi ‘yong tamang salita para ma-comfort ka, para makatulong,” NNARA Youth’s Miguel also said.

(Even if you don’t tell her you have a problem, she sends a message to check on you. She always knew the right words to comfort and help you.)

Her creative side

In 2022, Mau volunteered as a teacher under Krayola, an organization that facilitated art workshops and activities to encourage alternative learning and creativity among children during the pandemic.

Her inclination to art drove her to earn UPOU’s Associate of Arts degree in 2024. But during that year also, she decided to devote to community organizing full-time, according to NNARA Youth chairperson Miguel.

She said Santuyo, in all of her activist years, did not stop learning art, particularly how to draw, producing creative works, and carving stamps as one of her efforts to advocate genuine agrarian reform and sectoral causes. 

For the UPOU University Student Council, Santuyo’s courage serves as an inspiration to the “E-skolar” community to continue learning society outside the four corners of the classroom, as it joined in the calling for justice for those killed in Negros Occidental.

“We stand by the right of all students to lawfully and peacefully exercise their constitutionally protected freedoms, especially in furtherance of raising their social consciousness,” read part of an earlier UP statement. It also called for an independent investigation into the killings. 

“The University shall remain a beacon of critical thinking, conscience, and courage.” – Rappler.com