After the Filipino people’s triumph against the Marcos dictatorship, Mother Petra continued to dedicate her time and energy for the struggle of the Cordillera People. She was active in the Cordillera People’s Alliance from its founding in 1984, up to the latter years of her life. She was a steady fixture in the mass movement in Cordillera, a celebrated mass leader, and a mother not only to her 7 children but to the vast masses she chose to serve.
Mother Petra lived an exemplary life. An icon to many activists, land defenders, and especially Indigenous women, Mother Petra’s influence lives on even after her passing in 2018.
In Filipino's culture, mothers are often referred to as “ilaw ng tahanan." Petra Macliing took this to another level and became Cordillera’s Mother Petra. She took on the role of being the guiding light of younger activists and fellow Cordillerans who are struggling for land, the right to self-determination, and a life free of exploitation and oppression.
Mother Petra came to prominence as an Indigenous leader when she and other women of the Bontoc tribe came face to face with engineers surveying their village in Brgy Mainit, a village targeted for corporate mining. Their struggle against corporate mining in the area would span across the next decade. In 1975 Mother Petra would lead her fellow Bontoc women in a hunger strike to protest the exploration of the area.
In the same decade, Mother Petra and the people of Bontoc would face another important battle against the exploitation of their land. It was during this time that late strongman Ferdinand Marcos began the construction of his World Bank-funded Chico Dam project. Through Mother Petra’s leadership and the collective strength of the people, they were able to concoct a potent force able to halt the dam’s construction and lead them towards victory.
In the 1980s Mother Petra and other Bontoc women would partake in a historic action that would later be retold to multiple generations of activists and advocates. Bontoc women are again face to face with greedy elements that seek to squeeze their land of its resources. Mother Petra led a congregation of women to protest against the entities that are looking to explore their land for corporate mining. The Bontoc women, in a very climactic fashion, stormed the mining site baring their naked bodies in front of the Engineers leading the mining exploration. It’s a Bontoc belief that men are not to see the bodies of mothers or else they will be faced with an endless cycle of bad luck. This riveting action of women stripping their clothes in protest would prove to be successful, the mining project was dismantled, left Mainit, and have not returned to this very day.
After the Filipino people’s triumph against the Marcos dictatorship, Mother Petra continued to dedicate her time and energy for the struggle of the Cordillera People. She was active in the Cordillera People’s Alliance from its founding in 1984, up to the latter years of her life. She was a steady fixture in the mass movement in Cordillera, a celebrated mass leader, and a mother not only to her 7 children but to the vast masses she chose to serve.
At the age of 90, Mother Petra peacefully slipped into eternal rest. Mother Petra left behind a legacy of militant perseverance amidst what seems to be enemies of great size. She walked the earth with the pride of being victorious in the midst of hardships. Mother Petra, to this day serves as a beacon for those still navigating their way towards greater leaps. Mother Petra has seen great victories, she may have not seen the complete emancipation of the Cordillera and the rest of the Filipino people, but she has already dedicated so much of her life in the struggle for those who will surely witness a world free of exploitation, plunder, and oppression.