BAGUIO CITY — “This struggle is long but we will fight until we win,” Leonora Membrot vows.

In the mountains of Kalinga, where the rivers sing the stories of ancestors and the soil holds the bones of warriors, an old enemy rises once more—this time bearing a name that means “to know or to be known.”

But the Makilala Mining Company, Inc. (MCCI) is bound to find not just copper, gold, and other minerals buried beneath the land but also the Kalinga people—grounded, resolute, and unwilling to be moved by promises built on sand.

As dawn breaks, the Kalinga people stand ready—rooted in rich soil and in an unbroken tradition of defending their home. 

What’s at stake?

For Airo*, a member of the Balatoc Tribe in Pasil, Kalinga, the land means survival. Here, farming and small-scale mining—passed down and shaped by years of hardship—are the community’s lifeblood.

“We have small-scale mining operations left behind by a previous mining company. That’s what the people of Balatoc rely on for their livelihoods,” Airo said in Filipino.

Kalinga is rich in copper, gold, silver and other minerals. These resources have long supported small-scale mining in communities like Balatoc, offering livelihoods while preserving ancestral ties to the land.

But a storm is coming. MCCI, a subsidiary of the foreign-backed Celsius Resources Ltd., has been allowed to conduct large-scale mining operations on more than 2,000 hectares of ancestral land. Its flagship project, the MCB Copper-Gold Project, targets over 300 million tons of ore in the heart of Pasil. The government has even funneled support through the Maharlika Investment Fund which allocates public money to large-scale ventures like this.

For residents like Airo, the threat is environmental and existential. “If the operation of Makilala Mining Company continues, there will definitely be chaos in our place.”

The fear extends beyond Pasil. In neighboring Tinglayan, farmers anticipate the far-reaching consequences of Makilala’s operations.

“There will be many of us affected,” said Dennis Buyagan, chairperson of the Tuglaw Farmers’ Association, speaking in Ilokano. “Tabuk will suffer the most. They’ll be the ones dirtied. But we will also be affected. Makilala needs hectares of land. Where do you think they’ll get that?”

Pablito Wayaway, the association’s vice chairperson, said, “Some mountains will be impacted. If the land is destroyed, the water that feeds our farms will disappear. All the trees will be cut down and turned into timber—that’s what we believe they’ll do.”

Even promises of land rehabilitation ring hollow. “You can’t simply fill a hole and call it whole again,” she said.

Leonora also challenged the promises of profit-sharing with communities. “If these large-scale mining companies come in, they say we’ll get a share.” But places like Itogon and Mankayan, in Benguet, once promised development, now bear the scars of sunken lands and devastated livelihoods.

Silenced in their land

At the heart of the resistance lies Kalinga’s struggle to define what true “consent” means. For many, consent is not a mere signature on a document. It is a collective, informed, and voluntary decision, a principle that the communities say has been undermined or outright abused.

Leonora called out the very process meant to protect them: Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). “The NCIP always abuses our FPIC. All affected areas should be consulted, but that never happened,” she said. Instead of protecting indigenous rights, she stressed that the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) has become complicit.

“Most of the Council of Elders don’t even understand Tagalog or English, but they just said yes because of the per diem, Php 500,” Airo said. “Our tribe-mates want to speak, but they aren’t being listened to.” Even their cultural structures are being reshaped. “At first, they respected our culture. But over time, it’s like they wanted to build their own. They followed the foreign investors and left the rest of us out.”

For Leonora and Airo, this is more than resisting a mining company. It is a battle to reclaim their voice and the true meaning of consent, to demand that decision about their land be shaped not by silence and exclusion, but by truth and respect.

Struggle as heritage

MCCI’s arrival is only the latest chapter in a long struggle—from the Chico River Dam opposition to Batong Buhay mining.

“We struggled then, it was so hard,” Leonora, now 73, said.  She recalled the assassination of Kalinga leader Macliing Dulag in 1980 for opposing the Chico River Dam. “We taught our children that our fight was real.”

Today, new generations carry that torch. “There are many young people supporting us now,” Leonora said. “They continue what we started.”

Airo said, “I hope we think of our children, grandchildren, and future generations—so that we, and not others, will be the ones to mine our land, and its riches will not be taken and brought to other countries.”

Leonora shared how Benguet and Abra joined Kalinga’s past struggles. Today, support grows from across the region—and even globally as the community’s defiance draws wider attention.

A future rooted in the people

The people of Kalinga are not anti-development. As Leonora put it, “We support development that respects our land and our rights. What we want is development that comes from us and benefits our communities.”

Airo said, “We already have more workers than Makilala Mining,” referring to their small-scale operations.

The people of Kalinga envision a future built on sustainable agriculture, local mining managed by communities, and forest protection. These are not dreams because they are already realities sustaining lives today.

As defenders get red-tagged, Leonora said: “Are we terrorists because we protect the environment? We are human rights defenders. We defend the land because it is our life and future.”

From April 24 to 26, the three defenders of their ancestral lands joined the Cordillera people in asserting their rights on the 41st Peoples’ Cordillera Day in Baguio City. They joined a protest in front of the regional offices of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the NCIP in the city on the first day of Cordillera day, putting forward calls of “No to large scale mining!” and “Resist the plunder of ancestral lands!”  

As the sun sets once more on the Cordillera, the fight continues. The Kalinga people will not be moved. Because what they stand to lose is far more than copper and gold. It is everything they call home. (With reports from Anne Marxze D. Umil)

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Author’s note: *Name has been changed at the interviewee’s request for security purposes. The name used is a pseudonym.