Calling their arrest an attempt to intimidate civil society and people’s organizations in the country, a labor NGO today demanded the release from detention of two elderly women activists who were arrested in Pavia town of Iloilo province on Maundy Thursday, April 2.

The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) called on the Ferdinand Marcos Jr government to immediately release migrant workers’ advocate Josephine Parra Porquia, 64, and Gabriela member Ma. Luisa Guillen, 62, claiming that the two are facing patently trumped-up charges.

“We join civil society and people’s organizations in the country in denouncing the arrest of Porquia and Guillen. The arrest of two elderly women on Maundy Thursday and on the basis, yet again, of trumped-up charges and planted evidence, is another attempt to intimidate various organizations serving marginalized populations,” said Kamz Deligente, CTUHR executive director.

The military and the police, which launched a joint operation for their arrest, claimed that Porquia is a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Panay regional committee, is the subject of an arrest warrant that was issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 21 in Mambusao, Capiz on June 28, 2012, and was found to have materials for making improvised explosive devices in her possession. They also claimed that Guillen interfered with Porquia’s arrest.

“We have seen this before many times, activists arrested based on trumped-up charges and planted evidence, and the police and military making up stories to justify their arrests. We have also seen courts junk those charges, but only years after activists have been imprisoned wrongfully. This is a rights violation and an injustice that must stop,” Deligente added.

Porquia is the wife of Jose Reynaldo “Jory” Porquia, who was a coordinator of umbrella organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or Bayan in the Panay region and is a victim of extrajudicial killing, shot dead while providing aid to poor communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guillen, meanwhile, is the mother of lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen, currently assistant vice president of the Visayas chapter of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers or NUPL, who was stabbed in the head and the back on March 3, 2021 by unidentified assailants after being red-tagged and receiving death threats.

“Porquia and Guillen are not criminals. They are part of activist families who have sought to empower marginalized communities in Panay to claim their rights, sacrificing their chances to a more affluent life. In a better society, they would be honored by the government, but now they are demonized, treated as criminals, and being targeted for rights violations,” Deligente stated.