Macliing Dulag

Macli-ing Dulag (customarily referred to by his first name, also spelled Macliing or Macli'ing (April 13, 1930 – April 24, 1980) was a pangat (leader) of the Butbut tribe of Kalinga province in the Philippines. He is best known as one of the leaders of the opposition to the Chico River Dam Project, which led to his assassination by armed forces under the command of then-president Ferdinand Marcos.

Because his murder was a watershed moment that united the peoples of the Cordillera in opposition against the dam, Macli-ing Dulag is among the most well known of the many victims of Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, and his name is inscribed on the Bantayog ng mga Bayani's Wall of Remembrance memorial in Quezon City. As was usual among the Butbut people at the time, he did not receive any formal schooling, although he learned how to sign his name. who lived in the villages of Bugnay, Buscalan, Lokong, Ngibat and Butbut in the Municipality of Tinglayan, Kalinga.

He was elected to three terms as barrio captain of Bugnay. One contemporary noted: "No adda riribuk dagiti agkakailian dagdagusenna't tumulong nga mangibanag kadagitoy. (He did not hesitate to lose a day's work to settle disputes among his people.)"

As a pangat of the Butbut, Macli-ing was one of the first leaders to oppose the project, organizing a bodong (peace council) in Barrio Tanglag in 1974 as an attempt to rally opposition against the dam.

In May 1975, the Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines helped organize another bodong involving 150 Bontoc and Kalinga leaders alongside church-based support groups, at St. Bridget's School in Quezon City. These early opposition efforts forced the Marcos administration to temporarily pull the NAPOCOR survey teams out of the area in 1975.

Militarization of Chico IV areas Frustrated by the project delays caused by the opposition, Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree no. 848 in December 1975, constituting the municipalities of Lubuagan, Tinglayan, Tanudan, and Pasil into a "Kalinga Special Development Region" (KSDR), in an effort to neutralize opposition to the Chico IV dam.

Eyewitness accounts indicate that ten individuals in military uniforms arrived in Bugnay on two Ford Fiera trucks, seeking out Macli-ing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc Sr., another opposition leader who lived nearby.

Dungoc Sr., upon hearing the commotion, immediately arranged his pillows and blanket to make it seem like a person was asleep inside and hid beside it. When men in uniform began shouting in their direction, demanding for them to open the door, his wife answered the door. She pointed to the soldiers where his husband was "sleeping," and the soldiers opened fire upon the rolled-up blanket. Dungoc Sr. managed to escape with only a minor hit on the wrist.

Aftermath Trial of Macli-ing Dulag's murderers His attackers were eventually identified as men under the command of Lieutenant Leodegario Adalem a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy's class of 1978. (Adalem and his men were identified more broadly in most media reports as elements of the "4th Infantry Division").

Impact on Martial Law press coverage Coverage of Macli-ing's murder proved to be a watershed moment in the mainstream press' coverage of Martial Law. The story of Macli-ing's murder was most actively pursued by journalist Ma Ceres P. Doyo and playwright Rene O. Villanueva, who got the story out in the press, and were interrogated by the military as a result. Editor Leonor Aureus, writing in 1985 for the National Press Club, noted that in the decade since 1972, there had been "no open and serious confrontation between the [mainstream] press and the military following the wave of arrests after martial law was declared."

Abandonment of the dam project Macli-ing Dulag's murder unified the various peoples of the Cordillera Mountains against the proposed dam, causing both the World Bank and the Marcos regime to eventually abandon the project a few years after.

In art and popular media The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) portrayed the life of Macli-ing Dulag and the horrors of martial law in the 1988 play Macli-ing Dulag. It was written by Malou Leviste Jacob and directed by Soxy Topacio. It starred Nanding Josef in the title role. Writer-director Dennis N. Marasigan lists it as one of 14 essential plays on martial law in the Philippines. It was written by Judy Cariño and Rene Villanueva and illustrated by Bernie Solina. It was one of the stories about Dulag recited at the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Read-Along session in Surigao del Sur in 2015.

"Ang Pangat, ang Lupang Ninuno at ang Ilog" ("The Chieftain, the Ancestral Land and the River"), written by Luz Maranan, is a story about the chieftain Dulag who led Igorot tribes against the government's dam project during the Marcos regime. The story won third prize in the 2012 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. The essay on which the book was based led to the author's harassment by the Philippine military in 1980. The original essay won a Catholic Mass Media Award for journalism, handed by Pope John Paul II to Doyo in February 1981.