Honoring Cordillera Day 2025

Honoring Cordillera Day 2025
Photo credit: Altermidya

Today, we honour Cordillera Day, which is celebrated annually in April to mark significant events in the region’s history. The gathering coincides with the death anniversary of key leaders of Kalinga and Bontok peoples, paying tribute to the martyrs who paved the way for continued collective action. More than a celebration of the past, it uplifts the enduring culture and collective resistance of the Cordillera peoples. Each gathering includes educational discussions on Indigenous rights and current regional and national issues, deepening understanding of their ongoing struggles. Traditional art forms such as community dancing, gong playing, and chanting honor the lived experiences and victories of Indigenous resistance.

Martyrs of the Chico Dam Resistance

During Martial Law, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos pushed for a World Bank-funded hydroelectric dam along the Chico River. This is an essential lifeline for the communities, farms, animals, and ecosystems it nourishes. The project would have submerged villages, rice fields, burial grounds, and orchards which would displace the Indigenous peoples who called the river their home.

Leaders like Macli-ing Dulag, who is a pangat (peace pact holder), Pedro Dungoc, and Lumbaya Gayudan stood firm. They believed that development should not demand the erasure of lives and land. Through community education and the forging of tribal peace pacts, they united once-divided groups to resist the dam—turning shared struggle into collective power.

As state forces realized that deception would not sway the Kalinga and Bontok leaders, militarization intensified. Community leaders faced death threats, harassment, and assassination attempts for standing firm in their resistance.

On the night of April 24, 1980, Ama Macli-ing Dulag was brutally murdered by a unit of Armed Forces of the Philippines. His home and village were surrounded, and he was gunned down in a targeted attack. His comrade and neighbor, Pedro Dungoc, narrowly escaped.

Photo credit: Macli-ing Dulag by Bantayog ng Mga Bayani

With state violence escalating, Pedro and Ama Lumbaya came to see the limits of peaceful resistance. Both would later join the New People’s Army, where they ultimately gave their lives continuing the fight for land, life, and self-determination.

The Ongoing Fight for Environmental Justice 

Environmental justice remains a pressing concern in Cordillera, being a region rich in natural resources and mineral reserves. These resources, however, have long been exploited by private companies and often at the expense of Indigenous communities.

Large-scale mining and dam projects have triggered landslides, flooding, ground subsidence, and severe food and water insecurity. Despite this history, such projects continue under the guise of “renewable energy,” with Bongbong Marcos pushing similar priorities—repeating the scars his father inflicted during the Chico Dam struggle. These extractive projects neglect the real needs of off-grid Indigenous communities.

Non-government and grassroots organizations have developed small-scale, decentralized energy systems that don’t harm rivers or watershed ecosystems. These alternatives benefit several villages, but without sufficient resources, they struggle to scale. As a result, many communities remain vulnerable, still reliant on fossil fuels and subject to corporate intrusion into their ancestral lands.

This is why today’s environmental defenders—following the legacy of Chico Dam resistance leaders—continue to push for a sustainable, equitable, and just energy transition. Yet for opposing destructive projects, they are often red-tagged, harassed, and threatened with violence.

41st Celebration of Peoples’ Cordillera Day

For decades, they have defended their ancestral domains from land grabbing and destructive projects, incorporating their calls and campaigns into each year’s theme. This year’s theme is: “Assert Peoples' Rights, Persist in the Struggle for Self-Determination, Advance the Politics of Change.”

Photo credit: Altermidya

Cordillera Day is a solidarity gathering that honors the Cordilleran people’s enduring struggle for their right to freely shape their political future and socio-economic, cultural, and political development on their own terms.

The deaths of Cordillera martyrs sparked mass movements and strengthen resistance against development aggression. Their sacrifice is a reminder that communities must come first, not corporations.

Today, Indigenous peoples in Kalinga, Ifugao, and Apayao continue to protect their rivers of life. There must be no state or corporate interference in ancestral lands. Those who have lived on and with the land for generations are the ones who should lead the way forward. As Macli-ing Dulag once said:

“Such arrogance to say that you own the land, when you are owned by it! How can you own that which outlives you? Only the people own the land because only the people live forever. To claim a place is the birthright of everyone.”

His words continue to echo across generations. Reminding us that land is not property, but a shared life source and legacy.

This April 2025, the Cordillera People’s Alliance is hosting a series of activities in Baguio to celebrate Cordillera Day. Join the intercollege workshops, cultural exhibits, a documentary screening, cultural night, the Energy Transition Summit, and the Taumbayan Miting de Avance!

For full event details, check out their Facebook page.

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