ILOILO City – Today marks the first death anniversary of veteran activist Jory Porquia who was shot to death in his rented house in Barangay Sto. Niño Norte, Arevalo district by masked armed men on April 30, 2020.
His family and fellow activists continue to demand justice for the crime.
“Nagalaum kami sa gihapon nga mapadasig or may himuon ang authorities bangud bisan update wala gid sila may nahatag sa amon or sa fam ily ni Jory,” according to Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan)-Panay deputy spokesperson Bryan Bosque .
There will be a Holy Mass at 8 a.m. today at a crematorium in Barangay Tanza Bonifacio, City Proper where Porquia’s ashes were deposited. A caravan will follow.
Before he was assassinated, the 50-year-old Porquia – city coordinator of Bayan Muna party-list – was red-tagged.
“Untaton na ang harassment, red-tagging and terrorist tagging sang mga aktibista. Nagabutang ina sang ila kabuhi sa katalagman,” said Bosque.
A week before he was killed, Porquia and Bayan Muna members here held community feeding and relief operations to urban poor communities sidelined economically by the coronavirus pandemic. He subsequently learned that strangers were asking around about his daily activities.
Recently, Porquia’s son Lean wrote Department of Justice secretary Menardo Guevarra asking to look into the brutal murder of his father, and that it be included in Administrative Order (AO) 35 committee investigations.
The inter-agency committee chaired by the DOJ was created under AO 35 in 2012. Its task is “to serve as the government’s institutional machinery dedicated to the resolution of unsolved cases of political violence in the form of extra-legal killings (ELK), enforced disappearances (ED), torture and other grave violations of the right to life, liberty and security of persons.”
“Such special powers are enjoyed by your office to expedite and compel state forces to answer allegations of extrajudicial killings. My father should be included in that order as a victim of this brutal and demonic act of murdering an innocent man,” read part of Lean’s letter.
He added: “We haven’t heard anything from the Philippine National Police since he was killed. I want justice for my father, Mr. Secretary, the same way you would demand justice [if] your own father is killed.”
In his youth a leader of the militant League of Filipino students, Porquia was a survivor of the martial law of then dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
After Marcos was ousted in 1986 via the People Power Revolution, he served as OIC member of the National Youth Commission under President Corazon Aquino.
He subsequently worked as an overseas Filipino worker in the Middle East and later in China, where he was active in organizing and advocating Filipino migrants’ rights.
Upon his return to the country, Porquia briefly engaged in the construction business and worked as Migrante organizer in Panay Island.
Porquia was an active environmentalist, too. He was among the activists of the Madia-as Ecological Movement, which was instrumental in the banning of destructive commercial mining in Panay Island.
He was one of the founders of Bayan Muna and active in the party-list’s engagement in developing good relations with local political leaders in Panay Island.
Porquia ran as councilor but failed to win, under Mayor Jerry Treñas’ slate in the 2007 elections.
Under the leadership of then National Anti-poverty Commission chief Liza Maza, Porquia assumed the coordination of the agency’s projects in Panay Island from 2017 to 2018./PN