Kalinga Chieftain Murdered: A Montage

I found a time capsule when I scoured through my grandfather’s stash of documents and newspapers when I was quarantined in Mount Data. He kept everything. The drafts to his letters were written on the back of calendars from years before I was born. Kip Moore photographed the species of moths that perched on the window of his home. The student journalists of the mission schools used to send mimeographed copies of the All Saints Messenger and The Sagada Postboy to their subscribers in Mountain Province. National newspapers used to have jumbo crosswords that made up half the page. In the stash there was only one copy of the now defunct The Northern Star. It is dated 4 May 1980, a Sunday. The paper costs forty centavos. Banner headline: “Kalinga chieftain murdered.”

The paper suffers from foxing: yellowing pages, brown spots appearing like a rash. The pictures are still clear. There’s FM eating hybrid yellow corn with the UP President. There he is again smothered in leis during a conference in Hawaii. There he is on a portrait hanging on the wall behind a pageant winner and her entourage. Yet again there he is as an editorial cartoon, tightening the rope around a pesky octopus called “unfair labor practices.”

Speaking of labor: a pregnant woman is accidentally shot by a policeman; her son is born through caesarean section. A taxi driver is shot between the eyes; his body is found along Easter Road. Another dead taxi driver in Burnham Park. Military men sneak into Bugnay and shoot Macliing Dulag in the chest, groin, and thigh. Martial Law is praised in the editorial, praised in an opinion piece, praised in the column on page three.

Striking is the picture of a clown, really a visitor from Guam in clown make-up. He smiles a wide clown-smile, his harlequin eyes are averted downwards, his hair is high and permed. It is part of the Very Special Arts Festival in Camp John Hay. Visitor from Guam looks like Ronald McDonald. Jimmy Carter snubs FM in his visit to the US, and two years later another Ronald coddles the same dictator.

On page ten there is a listing of movies being shown in Baguio’s cinema houses. Session Theater (now the Italian restaurant Volante) is showing Italian mob film Violent City starring Charles Bronson. Empire Theater along Shagem Street is showing Disco Madhouse starring Lorna Tolentino and Rio Locsin. Its soundtrack by Hotdog wails: “The world is a disco madhouse!” First Cinema Theater along General Luna is showing The China Syndrome, a film about a nuclear meltdown and “a television reporter paid to smile, not to think.” Plaza Theater in Malcolm Square is showing Kung Tawagin Siya’y Bathala: “At ako si Marco! Si Marco ang maghahari mula sa bayan na ito hanggang sa kabundukan!”

Column on page two: “To build or not to build” the Chico Dam. Opposition from the Kalingas and Bontocs who “feared that what happened to the former residents of Ambuklao, Binga and Pantabangan would happen to them.” Displacement. Ricefields, villages, and ancestral lands submerged in water. Macliing was murdered by armed and uniformed men. Fast forward 2020: Tumandok leaders in Iloilo oppose the Jalaur Dam; they are gunned down by armed and uniformed men.

Feature article: Isabela, upcoming province, enchanting attractions, shorelines, shrines, a 17th century church, the Magat Dam — “two and a half times longer than the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija.” Fast forward 2020: barangays in Isabela and Cagayan submerged in water; call it climate change, Typhoon Ulysses, the seven gates of Magat, or gross incompetence.

The people trust their government, says the editor-in-chief of The Northern Star. Juxtapose with the banner headline. Insert the picture of the clown from the Very Special Arts Festival. No matter what the pundits say it does not change the fact that it was 10:00PM in the village of Bugnay when government troops shot Macliing Dulag in his own home for opposing the Chico River Dam project. Kalinga chieftain murdered.

I asked my students one morning: Who is Macliing Dulag? They do not know. Very little about the Chico River struggle. This part of history is drowned out by those who are paid to smile, not to think. This is why we must keep repeating ourselves: “Kalinga chieftain murdered.”