CHAPTER 17 Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA)

Overview
The Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) is an armed group of indigenous people in the Cordillera mountain range of northern Luzon, many members of which have been integrated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Originally made up of units that split from the Communist Party of the Philippines-New Peoples Army (CPP-NPA), it has since suffered from factionalism and inghting. It continues to push for regional autonomy, more than 20 years after signing a peace pact with the Philippine government.

Basic characteristics
Typology
The CPLA is an armed group of indigenous people based in the Cordillera mountains that seeks regional autonomy and is currently being integrated into the government armed forces. The group now considers armed struggle to be secondary to legal parliamentary struggle (Buendia, 1991).

Current status
There are conicting reports about the status of the CPLA. The group was rst reportedly unied under the leadership of Mailed Molina and Corazon Cortel (Conrado Balwegs widow, see below) with Arsenio Humiding acting as chair when Molina ran for a government position (Cabreza, 2007). Molina was still claiming the chairmanship in 2008.1 According to the Ofce of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), the CPLA has divided into at least three factions. Once applauded for helping with peacekeeping in the region, some CPLA elements and factions have been accused of murder, illegal logging, and marijuana trafcking (CRC, 1989). Hundreds of CPLA
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members were integrated into the Philippine Army (AFP) and Citizens Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) militia in 2001 (see Chapter 6).

Origin
In the early 1970s, indigenous people joined the New Peoples Army (NPA) and the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) in resisting the Marcos dictatorship and the operations of multinational companies in the Cordillera, in particular the Cellophil Resources Corporation in Abra, the Chico River Dam project spanning the Mountain Province and Kalinga, and the Batong Buhay Gold Mining Project in Kalinga. The Cordillera mountain ranges soon became known as active operations bases for the NPA (CRC, 2000, p. 1). The Cordillera units seceded from the NPA because of perceived discrimination against highland NPA members; by the drive by ex-Catholic priest turned NPA commander Conrado Balweg for the self-determination of mountain tribes to be recognized immediately and not only after victory; and by the decision by the NPA to put Balweg under house arrest on suspicion of sexual and nancial opportunism (Coronel-Ferrer, 1997, pp. 21314; CRC, 2000, p. 1). They established the CPLA in April 1986soon after the fall of the Marcos dictatorshipand focused on the struggle for regional autonomy and self-determination. The founding members were mostly Cordillerans belonging to different ethnolinguistic national minorities. In September 1986, the CPLA entered into a sipat (cessation of hostilities) with President Corazon Aquino. It became a partner of the government for development projects in the Cordilleras, though it continued to agitate against the Cellophil Resources Corporation and the Chico River Dam project. The group continued to advocate regional autonomy, which was only partially granted by the governments of Aquino and her successors, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (see Chapter 6). Internally, the CPLA faced a leadership problem and accused Balweg of misuse of the organizations funds, corruption, and dereliction of duties as leader (CPLA, 1993). On 30 June 1993 the CPLA and its political arm, the Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBA), announced a reshufe, which Balweg rejected, leading to the creation of another CPLA faction headed by Mailed Molina and James Sawatang. The government sided with Balweg. The NPA killed Balweg
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in Abra in 1999 (Rousset, 2003), whereupon his widow Corazon Cortel took over the CPLA leadership. Cortel eventually joined Molina;2 she died of natural causes in March 2008. The government, through the OPAPP, continues to deal with this faction (OPAPP, 2008). The group has suffered politically and economically in recent years, and has expressed anger at the failure of successive governments to honour their commitments to grant the region greater autonomy and to integrate CPLA members into the AFP and the ofcial auxiliary groups of the security forces. In 2001, President Arroyo signed an order integrating 264 Mailed-faction members into the AFP and 528 members into six CAFGU companies deployed in six Cordillera provinces and elsewhere (OPAPP, 2008; Solmerin, 2004). In 2004, the CBA and the CPLA again declared autonomy and threatened war. In April 2008, a new agreement was signed promising to full the commitments of the 1986 Mount Data Peace Accord.

Aims and ideology

The core CPLA demand was the setting up of a Cordillera autonomous region founded on the indigenous peace pact institution of the bodong, which results in alliances and commonwealths of tribes. The CPLA and the CBA do not wish to secede from the national government, but aim to free their indigenous people from the Filipino majority that makes use of the State to perpetuate national oppression against the minority people in the Cordillera (Garming, 1989, p. 9). They seek autonomy, equal rights, justice against oppression and exploitation, and participation in peacekeeping in their territories. Formerly with the CPP-NPA, the CPLA has since eschewed Marxism-LeninismMaoism, aiming instead for Cordillera regional autonomy through parliamentary struggle based on the bodong.

Leadership
Arsenio Humiding is acting leader of the unied CPLA. Former chair Mailed Molinathe former mayor of Bucloc town who was briey arrested in June 2007 on charges of drug trafcking and possession of illegal weaponscontinues to describe himself as CPLA chair (Andrade, 2007; Cabreza, 2007). As of 200304, at least three other CPLA factions exist: the Yao group, the Bun-as
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group, and the Aydinan group of the CPLA-Kalinga (OPAPP, 2008). When interviewed in Cagayan de Oro City on 30 November 2006, Corazon Cortel and Arsenio Humiding of the unied CPLA dismissed them as leftovers rather than factions. The Balweg and the Molina factions united under their newly elected chairman Mailed Molina at a Workshop on CPLA Concerns held on 25 April 2008 in Tabuk City, Kalinga province. The April 2008 Joint Declaration of Commitment promising to full the commitments of the 1986 Mount Data Peace Accord with the GRP was signed on the CPLAs behalf by Molina and CBA President Marcelina Bahatan.

Political base, combatants, and constituency

The various CPLA factions claim the same mass base, eld commanders, and foot soldiers among the indigenous people in the central Cordillera region. This region comprises the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province (CPA, n.d., p. 7). The Cordillera Bodong Administration led by Marcelina Bahatan is the CPLAs political centre (Cabreza, 2007).

Sources of nancing and support

The government released PHP 10 million (USD 380,400) in livelihood loan assistance to former rebels in 198696 and PHP 7.5 million (USD 285,300) for development projects in the Cordillera (Coronel-Ferrer, 1997).3 Twenty years after the peace pact, the government admitted it had not delivered on its promises of land reform, integration, or even clean water, good roads, and livelihood projects for the Kalinga CPLA (Cabreza, 2006a, p. A20). The Philippine Senate cut the 2006 budget allocation for development projects in the Cordilleras (Cabreza, 2006b).

Military activities
Size and strength
In 2001, around 1,200 CPLA members were integrated into the AFP and promised livelihood projects by the government. In 2006, President Arroyo directed the Department of National Defense to integrate 3,800 CPLA members into the ofcial security forces and the armed civilian auxiliary forces (see ChapPart Two Armed Group Proles 321

ter 6). The government estimated active CPLA members to number 4,000 in 2007 (PIA, 2007).

Collaboration and friction with other armed groups

The CPLA engages in sporadic ghting with NPA units in the Cordilleras. In 2004, the CPLA urged all non-Cordillera armed groupsincluding the AFP, the NPA, and private armiesto leave their territory (Solmerin, 2004). In 1999, the Mailed CPLA faction forged an alliance with the Sosyalitang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP), which is reportedly made up of breakaway organizations and personalities from the local Communist movements with links to the MNLF, the MILF, and the Abu Sayyaf Group (Benguet Police Provincial Ofce, 2000). The SPP eventually merged with the Filipino Workers Party (Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino, PMP) in 2002 (see Chapter 14).

Small arms and light weapons

Guns are highly valued among the people in the Cordilleras and nearby provinces. CPLA members and their sympathizers have not laid down arms, and argue that the peace pact between the government and the CPLA does not require them to do so. Spears, bolos, and other primitive weapons have traditionally been used by Cordillera indigenous people in warfare but have been supplanted in many instances by guns, which have reportedly altered the nature of ritual peace processes among politically autonomous villages engaged in conict over water rights, boundary disputes, or killings and counter-killings. Previously a declaration of war accompanied by rituals and omens used to precede hostilities in traditional warfare. In addition, peace sanctuary areas were maintained, and combat was face-to-face. Such rituals are reportedly no longer followed because bullets made reprisals too impersonal (Prill-Brett, 2005).

Human security issues

Children associated with ghting forces
A 2005 independent report suggests child soldiers were recruited (PHRIC, 2005).
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Human rights
The CPLA has been accused of human rights abuses, including the killing of CPP sympathizer and tribal leader Daniel Ngayaan in 1987 and harassment of an NGO conducting relief operations for earthquake victims that same year. Molina has been accused of continuing to recruit peoplesome with criminal recordsto his private army and of using his private army to his personal political advantage; he rejects the accusations. In 1999, the Baguio City Council proclaimed Molina persona non grata after he paraded in the city with 300 armed men on Cordillera day (Benguet Police Provincial Ofce, 2000; CPA, c. 1988).

Outlook
More than 20 years after signing a peace pact with the government in 1986, the CPLA has not realized its goal of helping to develop the tribal communities of the Cordillera, much less achieved the autonomy it aspires to (Malanes, 2007). The Cordillera peace pactthe rst peace agreement between the Philippine government and a rebel groupmay be an example of a failed experience in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) if it is not saved by the present government. The GRP and the CBA-CPLA signed a Joint Declaration of Commitment on 25 April 2008 toward the completion of the 1986 Mount Data Peace Accord. Consensus points included an expansion of livelihood assistance to CPLA members who have not beneted in the past and the involvement of the Department of Justice to determine the correct interpretation of the provision for the establishment of the Cordillera Regional Security Force (see Chapter 6).

Endnotes
1 2 3 A news report from 8 November 2009 suggests that Molina was voted out of the leadership (Madarang, 2009). Interview with Corazon Cortel, 30 November 2006. Currency conversions at the rate obtaining on 31 December 1996.

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