As a member of the Mainit tribe of Bontoc,[1] she joined the indigenous peoples of Bontoc and Kalinga in the fight to protect their "ili" (home village) against a World Bank funded dam project in the Philippines.
[2] She is a founding member of Cordillera People's Alliance and leader of the Montañosa Women's Federation.
She is also a member of the Kalinga-Bontoc Peace Pact Holders Association (KBPPHA) and the Cordillera Elders Alliance (CEA).
[4] To support her family, Macliing worked as a farmer and sold saris, managing to send all of her daughters to college.
Her youngest daughter, lawyer Francesca Macliing-Claver, recounted that she was only 3 months old when her father passed away.