[3] Balweg and fellow priest Bruno Ortega broke away from the NPA and formed the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) in 1986, criticizing the latter for its incompetence in pursuing its goals.
[3] The formation of the CPLA saw the merger of the Tingguian Liberation Force, a splinter group from NPA Abra to form the Cordillera organization.
[7] While the group has stopped armed confrontation, the CPLA remains extant as of 2013, and still campaigns for greater autonomy in the Cordilleras with about 1,000 members.
In 2016, a man named Conrado Dieza misrepresented himself as the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) chair, and Nilo Tayag, purportedly an Aglipayan bishop, used the name of CPLA in soliciting cash, deceiving fellow Filipinos into shelling out a certain amount of money in exchange for government positions and projects, and claiming they have the ears of President Duterte and all senior government officials.
In 2018, the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) faction led by Conrado Dieza, Mailed Molina, and Jude Wal was supposed to hold a Regional Federalism Summit at the capitol gym but the DILG Provincial Director, Mayer Adong, said that his office did not recognize the summit as a legitimate activity of the CPLA.