Various Filipino organisations in and around Metro Vancouver are mourning the death of 15-year-old Deward Ponte, who was stabbed to death last week near Grays Park, just north of 33rd and Fraser Street in Vancouver.

Philippine Ambassador Jose Brillantes told The Asian Pacific Post that the tragic and unexpected death of Ponte "shocked" the entire Filipino community, and expressed personal disbelief at the incident.

Brillantes, along with other officials at the Philippine Consulate office in Vancouver, visited the family in the aftermath of the tragedy to express their sympathy to grieving mother, Daisy Ponte and the rest of the young man’s family members and friends.

Relatives described him as a "decent kid" and a "basketball champ" at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary on Vancouver's west side.

The 15-year-old Ponte was found bleeding from stab wounds in the 1000-block of East 33rd Avenue shortly after police were called to Grays Park, where about a dozen teens were causing a disturbance just after 2 a.m. He never made it to hospital. A second man, Clifford Mamuad, was wounded but survived the attack.

Subsequent police investigations led to the arrest of a suspect, but media reports indicate that the Vancouver Police subsequently withdrew a murder charge against one teenager and laid it against another in the fatal stabbing last week.

Dillan Butler, 18, was originally charged with second-degree murder in Ponte's death, but that was changed to the attempted murder of Mamuad. Police subsequently charged Roseller Salvacion, 19, with second-degree murder in Deward’s death.

Daisy, Deward’s mother, recounted the difficulties of working in Canada in a government-sponsored caregiver program that often separates workers from their children for years. It took her five years to bring her boy to join her in Canada. She criticizes Canada’s live-in care program.

Filipina caregivers come to Canada under the program that allows them to sponsor their children to come to Canada only after the workers have been here at least two years.

In a press conference last Friday, Daisy and Mildred German, spokeswoman for the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance, said that the program divides families and denies children the love and guidance of their parents, an issue raised by the Filipino community in connection with the death of Ponte.

"Because of the policies of the live-in care program, I knew that coming to Canada would separate me from my children," says Daisy, who now works as an on-call care aide. “I had no option but to live in Canada as a live-in caregiver.”

She recalled that in her first live-in job, her employer once drove her to the airport and told her she was about to be deported.

Daisy, who came to Canada in 2000, said she couldn't afford to bring her two children to Canada until 2005. Their father died in 1997, she said, and suggested Ponte’s life may have gone down a different path had she been a constant in his young life.

"Our demand is to scrap the LCP (live-in Care Program) and allow Filipino workers to come here as permanent residents," said German.

Daisy had the following message for the Canadian government: “Now that he is dead it seems like a better life in Canada is a false expectation. I am hoping and calling the government of Canada to do something so that these tragic events will not happen again."