Indigenous environmental defenders and the legacy of Macli-ing Dulag: Anti-dam dissent, assassinations, and protests in the making of Philippine energyscape

• Published in: Energy research & social science Vol. 65; p. 101463
• Main Author: Delina, Laurence L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2020
• Subjects: Energy justice; Energy transition; Ifugao; Indigenous peoples; Mobilization; Ifugao; Mobilization; Energy justice; Energy transition; Indigenous peoples
• ISSN: 2214-6296; 2214-6326
• DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101463

•The Indigenous Peoples of the Philippine Cordillera have been producing narratives of dissent against large-scale hydro development projects.•The narratives of Macli-ing Dulag's assassination, cultural performances, and the Pagta ti Bodong (networked mobilization) became essential devices for Indigenous Peoples’ dissent.•These narratives built up a strong sense of Indigenous Peoples’ identity in the Cordillera, one that transcends time and space.•Contemporary Indigenous Peoples’ mobilizations against similarly positioned and equally powerful agents and forces of state and capital in the Philippines are primarily inspired by these and other emergent protest narratives. Globally, Indigenous Peoples’ dissent against unjust state and corporate incursions in their lands is being suppressed. States and corporations use penal laws, anti-terrorist legislation, and emergency powers to justify the detention of activists, who are subject to intimidation, human rights violations, or, at worst, extrajudicial killings. In 2019, the Philippines was named the most murderous country for environmental defenders; yet the literature about Indigenous Peoples’ dissent in the country, where militarization of ancestral domains has been a continuing state project, remains scant—in contrast to extensive academic attention in other places particularly in the Americas. This paper asks how, when and where Philippine Indigenous Peoples’ dissent started to expand—what narratives of mobilizations did history produce, and how do these narratives travel across space-time. Using multi-methods research and focusing on the Philippine Cordillera, where mega-hydropower projects have been extensively proposed as a key mode for energy transition, yet are widely opposed by uncolonized peoples, this paper describes how Macli-ing Dulag's assassination, the Ifugao cultural performances, and networked mobilization during the second half of 1970s up to the early 1980s are becoming relevant in present-day dissent against large-hydro projects.