It was a period characterized by the socio-political upheaval and awakening in response to the declaration of martial law in the Philippines and as a result of the Vietnam war and a succession of economic crises.
After graduating college, she was involved mainly in the production of calligraphy and etching, influenced by artists such as Benedicto Cabrera and Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi.
[4] In 1981, she produced a series of social realism paintings that depicted wives and mothers witnessing the neo-liberal phenomenon of export labour, displacement of native cultures due to technology and agriculture.
This can be seen in her 1983 painting "Pasyong Bayan" ("A Nation's Passion"), which speaks of the people's struggle against militarisation in the Philippines and injustices of martial law under the dictatorship of President Marcos, facilitated by American imperialism.
[2] In her use of periodicals, stickers, art reproductions and texts allowed her illuminate national social, political, environmental and economic issues and struggles within the Philippines.
[4] Her works explore the experience of on-going colonisation, Armageddon from continuous Filipino occupation and inappropriate modernisation, as well as dealing with traumas of these struggles.
Within this part of her work, she uses religious iconography and elements including scapulars, holy icons, anting-antings or amulet figures and sometimes books.
[2] Throughout her works, she looks for heroines and heroes as she finds inspiration in martyred activists in against the Marcos regime, revolutionaries from the late nineteenth-century Philippine struggle of independence and unknown women artists.
In this way, she hopes to connect herself and the viewers with the women she admires, and creates a network of alignment with bodies of heroines that are separated through geography and history.
[7] Her works also convey women's involvement in achieving reforms in worker's rights, farming resources and land ownership after the overthrowing of Marcos dictatorship.
The first Museum curator of the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, Roberto C. Rodriguez, questioned art's notion as an establishment during the Marcos regime which vocalised its claim to progress, national identity and legitimacy.
This included the underground revolutionary group, Makibaka (Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan or Free Movement of New Women) that began shortly before the President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
Cajipe-Endaya's works combines taka dolls from Paete, her hometown, to produce new images of women while challenging the boundaries between fine and folk art.
She was a member of the Committee on Visual Arts, which was constituted under the law that created NCCA as the key cultural body that is liable to the Office of the President.
[13] The NCCA was focused on creating change from the ground up, with its roots in volunteer work, with practising artists from different disciplines, and Filipino indigenous communities from northern and southern Philippines.
[13] Cajipe-Endaya worked with Paul Zafaralla, in the group's Documentation, Research and Publications sub-committee in order to formulate the Visual Arts committee project: Pananaw.
The non-profit body was shaped from a purely artist-driven group into one worked with critics, managers of culture, as well as gallerists in order to create productive discourses between actors within the art world.
By the second volume, Cajipe-Endaya had stepped back from the position as project director, enabling the autonomous running of Pananaw, due to the momentum of young editors, writers, and artists that allowed the intersection between different streams of meaning-making.