May Bayot-De Castro, the Filipino singer and stage actress best known for playing Elsa in the musical Himala, died on Monday, October 26, 2026. Her younger sister, the singer Lani Misalucha, confirmed the death in a Facebook tribute.
“Some walk beside us for years. Others leave sooner than we’re ready for. But every person we love leaves a little light behind,” Misalucha wrote. “I love you Ate.”
Elsa in Himala
Bayot-De Castro played Elsa in Himala: Isang Musikal, the stage adaptation of Ishmael Bernal’s 1982 film starring Nora Aunor, about a young woman in a poor village who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. Her performance won her the Aliw Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2019 she returned to the musical in a new role, playing Elsa’s mother, Nanay Saling.
Outside the theatre she sang with the band Acoustic Jive, whose repertoire ranged across jazz, pop, R&B, blues and reggae.
A musical family
She grew up in a family of singers. Her father, Benjamin Bayot, was an operatic tenor, and her mother, Esperanza Bayot, a coloratura soprano. Her sister Lani Misalucha became one of the best-known singers in the Philippines, often called “Asia’s Nightingale.”
Illness
In September her sister Karlyn Scali launched a fundraising appeal for her medical care. The appeal said she was living with primary myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, and chronic kidney disease, and needed regular dialysis and blood transfusions. The family has not released further details about her death.