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.
[1][2][3] 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.
[4] Like the majority of Kalinga people of the time, Macli-ing earned his living through farming, although at one point briefly took on a job as a "caminero" (road maintenance worker) for the Department of Public Works and Highways.
)"[7] In 1974, residents of Sadanga, Mountain Province and Tinglayan, Kalinga were surprised when teams from the National Power Corporation began appearing in their villages, conducting preparatory surveys for the Chico River Dam Project of then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
[8] 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.
848 in December 1975, constituting the municipalities of Lubuagan, Tinglayan, Tanudan, and Pasil into a "Kalinga Special Development Region" (KSDR),[10] in an effort to neutralize opposition to the Chico IV dam.
[2] Furthering the militarization of Tomiangan, the Philippine Constabulary forces were replaced by the 44th Army Infantry Brigade, which had previously been assigned to Isabela.
[3] Even as the armed forces were focused harassing the Bontoc and Kalinga into relinquishing their lands, government officials also attempted to get the locals to leave by bribing tribal leaders, achieving only a little success.
[2] In another instance, he was invited to a meeting at the Panamin Foundation headquarters; upon arriving he was shocked when he was led to a room full of "young and beautiful women," and told to "choose one for the night."
[11] 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.
[2][14] His attackers were eventually identified as men under the command of Lieutenant Leodegario Adalem[2] of the 44th Infantry Battalion,[15] a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy's class of 1978.
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.
[8] Dulag's name is inscribed on the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument of the Heroes) Wall of Remembrance in Quezon City, Metro Manila, which is dedicated to victims of extrajudicial killings since the Martial Law era.
[28] The story of Macli-ing Dulag's opposition to the Chico River Dam Project features prominently as a plot point in Auraeus Solito's 2008 film "Pisay," which is set in the Philippine Science High School in Quezon City during the months leading up to the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the 1997 documentary Batas Militar.
[28] The University of the Philippines Press published in 2015 Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera, written by journalist Ma.
[5][33] The original essay won a Catholic Mass Media Award for journalism, handed by Pope John Paul II to Doyo in February 1981.