Joselito “Alih” Melloria was described by his relatives as a silent man, behaved and decent.
This was before he met his future wife in Manila and converted to Islam in Zamboanga City.
“We could easily ask him to do something for us when he was in high school,” said Pasing Dela Torre, Melloria’s landlady back then.
Dela Torre, together with her son, went to the funeral parlor in Clarin, Bohol to look at Melloria’s body.
“He was a good boy when he was in high school,” she said.
For Melloria’s mother Maria Norma, 67, her son was a kind and upright man, but his love for his wife drove him to join the terrorist group.
According to intelligence reports, Melloria was a “balik Islam” or Muslim convert from Barangay Napo, Inabanga, Bohol.
He converted to Islam when he married a Muslim woman from Salug, Zamboanga Del Norte in 2005.
Melloria worked in Tanza, Cavite in 2007 and went to Saudi Arabia from 2013 to 2014. When he returned in the country in 2015, he reportedly joined the Maute Group.
He then left Cavite and went to Butig, Lanao Del Sur because he murdered another Muslim convert in Cavite. He went to Mohammad Jaafar Maguid alias Tokboy, a leader in Sultan Kudarat.
Melloria was then directed by Tokboy to go to Muammar “Abu Rami” Askali in Sulu.
From then on, Melloria was monitored to be with Abu Rami’s group who arrived in Bohol more than a week ago.
Abu Rami, along with four other ASG members, were killed in a clash with government troops in Inabanga.
Melloria was killed last Saturday evening with three other suspected members of ASG in Clarin, Bohol.
With Melloria’s death, the military and the police are hopeful that they will catch the remaining three others who are still on the loose in Clarin.