Student activist, non-profit leader, USG president: Introducing Enzo Kho ’26

Kho entered Princeton having started a non-profit organization for marginalized communities in the Philippines and receiving outlash for speaking out in the 2022 Filipino presidential election. In order to understand his commitment to service and how it will inform his Undergraduate Student Government (USG) presidency, The Daily Princetonian sat down with Kho and classmates from Princeton and his hometown.

Kho grew up in a small town in the Philippines, outside of Dumaguete City. The discrepancy between resources for students in the urban and rural areas fueled his desire to help communities outside of the metropolitan areas, he recalled. This landscape was a key factor in Kho’s inspiration to help marginalized communities through his non-profit organization, the Alliance of Empowered Youth Philippines (ALLEY PH) that he began in his junior year of high school.

“Enzo reached out to me, and he said that he wanted to build a youth organization that connects people from the grassroots communities to opportunities, not only in the Philippines, but all over the world,” said Julie Velonta, co-founder of ALLEY PH, in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “Enzo is just passionate about democratizing access to opportunities.”

Kho emphasized the mentorship he was able to receive from his school and community in Dumaguete City while applying to schools in the United States was influential for his approach to ALLEY PH.

“It was all about mentorship,” said Kho in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “We want to really emphasize mentors, mentorship, giving that resource or network to the students outside the city.”

Velonta recounted one time during which Kho led efforts to help underprivileged communities following typhoon Rai, known in the Philippines as super typhoon Odette.

“Even though we were working so many hours during that day, I really never saw tiredness in Enzo’s face,” Velonta said describing their efforts in gathering funds for potable water and other emergency supplies following this typhoon. “I [had] met a person who’s very passionate in what they do, that their tiredness never shows and what shows is just their passion and their happiness.”

Another member of ALLEY PH, Dinn Nipshagen, first met Kho in a high school election — they ran against each other for a position in their school’s student government in 2020. Following Kho’s victory in the election, he reached out to Nipshagen and expressed a desire to work together in the future.

“What makes Enzo exceptional is his ability to transform opportunities into meaningful change,” Nipshagen said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

Kho continued his involvement through his senior year, during which he was admitted to Princeton.

“It’s a very small town, and so no one in that area went abroad for college,” said Kho. “When I got accepted, it sparked a lot of talk around town, giving hope, especially, to my community. It [was] the first time that someone was accepted to multiple schools on a full ride.”

Later in his senior year, Kho’s story took a dramatic turn. On May 10, 2022, election results from the Filipino presidential election were announced, which sparked protests across the country due to questions concerning election fraud. Kho remembers this day vividly, as he was awoken by a protest that passed through his street. This was uncommon, according to Kho, and many of the protesters were farmers or from other marginalized backgrounds.

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“I usually don’t make political statements in the Philippines, but … because of the work that I had done working in the community, I felt like I had a big responsibility to represent those voices,” Kho said.

Due to his admission to Princeton, Kho had built a social media presence in which he was able to reach a wider audience. “I knew that at that time I had the privilege and the role to do it,” Kho said.

That morning, Kho posted on Facebook about his views regarding the protest, which quickly spread and gained momentum in his region. “Both the results of the national and local election [were] disappointing,” he wrote in the post. He also claimed that the projects the “incumbent mayor and vice have developed … DOES NOT EQUATE TO SOCIAL PROGRESS!!!”

Following this post, Kho remembered feeling hopeful and optimistic about the outcomes of his activism and was not overly concerned with any negative consequences.

Kho said that on May 14, 2022, he was then “attacked by [the] local radio station for 30 minutes.” The host spoke against Kho, he said, for half an hour, saying “how wrong he was” and that he was “young [and] didn’t know anything,” according to Kho.

That night, around 12:30 a.m., Kho heard noise from outside and soon discovered his house was on fire. He and his family escaped, but he had lost everything inside.

“That was the wake up call for me, that this is actually a serious thing to be involved in. [For] the next few months, it was rough,” Kho recounted on the months following the fire. Following the USG presidential debate, Kho alleged that this incident was a targeted offense due to his Facebook post, but added that official reports did not confirm this.

For the sake of his safety, Kho spent the next few months before his journey to Princeton constantly moving locations between relatives, seeing his family a few times each week.

During this tumultuous time, Kho received a letter, informing him that the mayor had filed a cyber-libel case against him for his Facebook post. At the time, Kho and his family were also struggling financially from the fire and now had to find a lawyer to defend this case. However, Kho was able to find a pro bono lawyer, and his case was dismissed in October 2022 by the local prosecutor.

“I owe a lot of my growth today to that experience,” Kho said. “[At my high school,] they make that story an example. They go back to what our role really is as citizens, or as young leaders,” he added.

Kho was able to move into Princeton on time in August 2022. Students within the Filipino community at Princeton were already aware of his presence even before he entered the school.

“To find out that there was a student coming to Princeton who had been involved in grassroots activism, but then was targeted by, I would say, government loyalists for speaking out for people’s rights … it was something really touching, but also really scary,” Cassie Eng ’25 said.

Kho’s first semester was a difficult period, with the transition to Princeton proving to be more trying than initially anticipated.

“I was just overwhelmed,” Kho said. “I didn’t know how to navigate the resources, especially because the first few weeks [were] just bombardment.”

Kho discussed his experience making friends and finding mentorship on campus, especially given the higher level of academic rigor. Additionally, Kho was not accepted to the dance groups he auditioned for, which further added to his difficulties during this semester.

“Freshman year was the roughest semester in my undergrad life, because I wasn’t part of any communities,” Kho told the ‘Prince’ in a November interview.

He discussed how a Freshman Seminar course taught by professor John Danner, FRS 109: The Other ‘F’ Word — Success and Innovation’s Sibling?, served as a resource for navigating his first semester at Princeton.

“It was good that I took that class during that semester when I had so many uncertainties about life. So many things that didn’t work out for me at that time,” said Kho. “But I think that class taught me [that] you don’t have to be perfect all the time, so that class was therapeutic for me.”

Following his first Fall semester, Kho began to serve as a Community Action fellow, Peer Career Advisor, and became involved with the Pace Center for Civic Engagement (PACE) to help new students with their transition to Princeton. Kho also became involved in more communities on campus, including Black Arts Company dance group.

Over the campaign trail, Kho discussed this as his motivations for running for USG President.

“I didn’t come from a background that taught me how to navigate a Princeton education,” Kho told the ‘Prince.’ “If someone in USG would have been very visible … that would have made a difference to me.”

In addition to his non-profit experience serving him at Princeton, Kho discussed how his activism has given him the ability to more successfully understand opposing perspectives and how his background would inform his decisions as USG president regarding student activism. Kho discussed how USG should have been better prepared to handle the encampment last spring and how he would approach an event to this magnitude.

“I think we weren’t able to handle the situation as we weren’t able to represent the population or the student body as well as we should have been doing,” Kho said. “Experience of mine helped me approach these types of conversations with intentionality.”

Kho’s solution to this will be to implement an “advocacy driven working group” to help facilitate discussions around activism and student rights. In addition to this strategy, Kho hopes to also use resources from the PACE center, such as their Advocacy and Activism Student Board.

“I also recognize that having this advocacy driven working group alone isn’t the only answer,” Kho said. “We want to tap into those resources and then work with them to be better prepared to represent the student body, especially in times where student rights are being violated or the administration is not being consistent with their promises.”

Following his election to USG president, Kho has been preparing to start new initiatives at Princeton, with a new level of visibility with the student body.

“With my next role as student government president, I don’t want to have that image being out of touch,” Kho said. “At the end of the day, we want to connect and to actually get all those perspectives and represent them in a way that’s very intentional.”

Kho’s close friends and colleagues echo their excitement about Kho’s new role in USG.

“When I heard that Enzo won the election for the student government’s president, the thought that came into my mind was, ‘Princeton University is very lucky to have Enzo lead them,’” Velonta said.

Devon Rudolph is a News and Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.