cpa@cpaphils.org | Post Office Box 975 Baguio City 2600 Philippines
We appeal for your urgent support to prevent the demolition of the monument of Macliing Dulag, Pedro Dungoc, Lumbaya Gayudan and other heroes of the historic Anti-Chico Dam Resistance!
This afternoon, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) received a notice from the Upper Kalinga District Engineering Office (UKDEO) of the Department of Public Works and Highways saying that the heroes’ monument encroached on a portion of the national road. The notice of demolition states that we are given seven (7) days from receipt of the notice to voluntarily remove the monument. If we fail to do so, UKDEO will remove the monument and charge the costs that will be incurred to the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and that they will resort to proper sanctions provided for by existing laws and rules of the government. There was no due process or dialogues held with the CPA on the matter. They want to make us pay for the cost of their sacrilegious acts. These heroes died from the hands of the government and now their legacy is bound to be killed once more. This is downright tyranny!
Last week, the PNP Provincial Advisory Council of the Kalinga Provincial Police Office requested the provincial government through the Provincial Board Committee on Oversight to enact a resolution to address the removal of the heroes’ monument.
The monument was built by the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in 2017, together with the families of the heroes and martyrs as well as people from Bugnay, the site of the monument. It was built to honor the legacy of our heroes and martyrs who successfully opposed the Marcos Dictatorship’s Chico Dams Project that would have brought massive destruction to the communities, culture and environment of the people of Kalinga and Mountain Province. It is a reminder to present and future generations of the valiant struggle by our elders to defend the ancestral land. It is a reminder of the Butbut tribe’s place in the history of the Chico valley, the Cordillera, the country, and the world.
It has been more than 3 years since the monument was built but it is only now that UKDEO and the police are raising the issue of encroachment and using this as an excuse to dismantle the monument. The DPWH should have stopped the construction from the start if indeed there was a violation. The people of Bugnay including Macliing Dulag’s family had welcomed the project and even helped build the monument on their ancestral land.
Demolition of the monument is tyranny especially at this time of COVID-19 pandemic! These heroes deserve the utmost respect of the people and the government. Their monument deserves to be in a place of honor within their ancestral domain.
Demolishing the monument is double injustice to the Anti-Chico Dams heroes. Macliing Dulag was shot dead by members of the Philippine Army led by Lieutenant Leodegardo Adalem on April 24, 1980. Until now, justice has not been served. Now his monument along with other heroes and martyrs is also bound to be destroyed.
To demolish and desecrate the monument is a brazen act of obliterating the Cordillera people’s history of struggle against oppression and injustice. It is part of the government’s acts of historical revisionism or distorting and erasing the true history of the people’s resistance and heroism which remain relevant until today.
This threat to demolish the heroes’ monument is another attack against the people, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, and against our heroes and martyrs who resisted development aggression and State repression. It is a part of the implementation of Executive Order 70 or the “Whole of Nation” approach to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (ELCAC) whereby communities and even local government units are being pressured and forced to comply. Historical revisionism is no doubt one of the goals of ELCAC.
Help save the monument from destruction!
For inquiries, please contact the Cordillera Peoples Alliance regional secretariat at cpa@cpaphils.org, pic@cpaphils.org.
Thank you for your support and solidarity!
