Most revolutions start with a manifesto. This one started with a mother’s love. When we talk about the medical cannabis movement in the Philippines, we are talking about a fight that was never handed to anyone — it was built, quietly and stubbornly, by women who had no other choice. These aren’t just activists; they are the nanays, the lolas, the elders who refused to watch their loved ones suffer while a system slow-walked its compassion.
Long before any bill reached the Senate floor, it was nanay after nanay sharing their children’s stories in online groups and hospital corridors — laying the groundwork for what would eventually become a national conversation about medical cannabis legalization in the Philippines. That conversation now has a structure, a legal voice, and a coalition. At the center of it are two women who represent the full arc of this movement: Ma. Louella “Lui” Manansala of Seniors for MedCan Philippines, and Lea Fullon, Executive Director of Haraya Policy Center.
Ma. Louella “Lui” Manansala: The Wisdom of the Elders
In most advocacy spaces, the elderly are the subject — the people being spoken about, not the ones doing the speaking. Lui Manansala changed that. As co-convenor of Seniors for MedCan Philippines, she represents a demographic that lawmakers often overlook and cannot afford to ignore: Filipino senior citizens living with chronic pain, degenerative illness, and the quiet indignity of being told there is nothing more medicine can do for them.
Tita Lui is also part of the cast of one of the few cannabis-themed films in the country: Gulay lang Manong.
Her advocacy is rooted in pag-aalaga — caregiving not as obligation, but as conviction. She does not come to hearings to make noise; she comes with the calm, grounded authority of someone who has watched suffering up close and decided that tiyaga — patience with purpose — is the most powerful weapon available to her. By organizing the elderly into a unified, visible voice, Lui did something quietly radical: she proved that the medical cannabis advocacy Philippines community is not a niche cause for a specific kind of patient. It is for every Filipino family.
Lea Fullon: The Protector of the Framework
If Lui brings the puso — the heart — of the movement, Lea Fullon builds the road it walks on. As Executive Director of Haraya Policy Center, a nonprofit dedicated to giving Filipinos legal access to plant medicine in the Philippines, Fullon is the movement’s policy architect. At a forum hosted by the UP Law Center Institute of Human Rights in April 2026, she stood before lawmakers and stated clearly:
“We are now demanding the people’s absolute right to health and autonomy. We are demanding a legal framework that recognizes that a plant is not a threat to public order.”
No paligoy-ligoy. Just the truth, stated with the precision of someone who has spent years making sure that when a mother asks for medical cannabis access in the Philippines, she is met with a regulated, safe system — not handcuffs.
Where Their Paths Crossed: CannAlliance PH and Senate Bill 2573
In April 2024, both Lui and Lea stood together as co-convenors of CannAlliance PH — a landmark coalition of seven Philippine cannabis advocacy organizations united behind Senate Bill 2573, the Cannabis Medicalization Act of the Philippines.
The Coalition Members:
- Haraya Policy Center
- Seniors for MedCan Philippines
- MedCann Party
- Sensible Philippines
- Philippine Society of Cannabinoid Medicine
- Masikhay Research Inc.
- Canna Hopefuls Inc.
“The chance of the medical cannabis bill passing into law is the highest so far since 2014,” the coalition declared. After a decade of knocking, the door was finally beginning to open.
Why It Started With Them
In the Philippines, the mother is the ilaw ng tahanan — the light of the home. When that light sees a child or a parent in pain, it does not flicker. It burns brighter. Lui and Lea represent two sides of the same laban: compassion and conviction. Together, they have not just changed the conversation — they have changed what the conversation is allowed to demand. Senate Bill 2573 is now closer to becoming law than at any point in the past ten years. It happened because Filipino women in cannabis advocacy refused to stop.
