21 years later, Nico Santos reunites with the yaya who helped raise him

ASM, Philippine Canadian Inquirer
October 06, 2026

Photo courtesy: Nico Santos | Facebook

MANILA, Philippines — For Nico Santos, coming home to the Philippines brought more than nostalgia. It brought him face to face with the woman who helped raise him from the time he was six months old.

Filipino-American actor and comedian Nico Santos has looked back on one of the most personal moments of his return to the Philippines: reuniting with the nanny who helped raise him from infancy.

Santos, best known for playing Mateo Liwanag in NBC’s “Superstore” and Oliver T’sien in “Crazy Rich Asians,” returned to Manila in 2017 during a break from filming the Hollywood movie in Asia. It was his first trip back to the Philippines in roughly two decades. 

During that visit, Santos reunited with his childhood yaya, who had helped care for him from the time he was about six months old.

He recalled that the two unexpectedly met in a mall and became emotional upon seeing each other again after 21 years apart. Santos later described the woman as someone who had been like a second mother to him. 

The reunion was one of several deeply personal moments during the trip, which also allowed Santos to reconnect with relatives he had not seen for years and experience Manila again as an adult.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Santos said returning home gave him a sense of familiarity he had missed while living abroad – from being surrounded by Filipino language and food to simply feeling at ease among people with whom he shared a cultural background.

Santos was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States as a teenager, eventually settling in Oregon with his family. He later built a career in stand-up comedy before breaking into television and film. 

His role in “Superstore” became a career breakthrough, with the character Mateo eventually rewritten to reflect more of Santos’ Filipino and queer identity. He later joined the cast of “Crazy Rich Asians,” a project he has described as especially meaningful because of its predominantly Asian cast and creative team. 

Santos has continued to speak openly about incorporating Filipino culture into his work. In more recent projects, including NBC’s “St. Denis Medical,” he has pushed for Filipino references, Tagalog dialogue and cultural details to be presented accurately on screen. 

His 2017 reunion with his childhood nanny remains one of the clearest reminders of the personal ties he retained to the Philippines despite spending much of his adult life in the United States.