Cordillera Central
More actions
| Cordillera Central | |
|---|---|
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2026 | |
| |
| Terraced farm fields at Mankayan, Benguet, from the air | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 16.95, 120.85 |
| Country | Philippines |
| Provinces/States | Benguet,Mountain Province,Ifugao,Kalinga,Ilocos Sur,La Union |
| Elevation | Up to 2,922 m |
| Area | 8,200 km² |
| Primary Mountains | Mount Pulag,Mount Chumanchil |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2023–2026 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
| Eradication reported | in 3 of the last 10 years (26 news reports, 2023–2026) |
Cordillera Central is a landrace cannabis growing region on the central mountain chain of northern Luzon, Philippines. The range runs north from the edge of Luzon's central plain to the Luzon Strait in two, and in places three, parallel ridges averaging about 1,800 metres in height.[1] The region takes in only the parts of the range in Benguet, Mountain Province, Ifugao and Kalinga where police and drug agents have reported plantations, and also Santol in La Union, where by 2011 marijuana had been grown openly for 40 years.[2][3][4] It is not the Cordillera Administrative Region. Its growing areas include Tinglayan in Kalinga, Kibungan in Benguet with the adjoining barangays of Sugpon in Ilocos Sur, Sadanga in Mountain Province and Santol.
Geography
The Sierra Madre, which runs along the Pacific coast from northern to central Luzon, meets the Cordillera Central in north-central Luzon, where the two form the Caraballo Mountains. North of the Caraballo the Cagayan Valley separates the two ranges. Along the west coast of northern Luzon runs the narrow Ilocos range.[1] Mount Pulag, at 2,922 metres the highest point in Luzon, stands where Tinoc in Ifugao meets Benguet and Nueva Vizcaya. The terrain of Tinoc ranges from 800 metres to that summit, though the peak's place on the Benguet boundary is disputed.[5]: 40
Police and drug agents have reported plantations on Mount Chumanchil in Tinglayan, on Mount Churyon in Betwagan, Sadanga, at Ahin in Tinoc, and in Benguet at Tacadang and Badeo in Kibungan and at Kayapa in Bakun.[6][3][2] In 2020 police reported "yet another" plantation on the boundary of Sadanga and Tinglayan, where Mountain Province meets Kalinga, and in 2026 plants were destroyed on the boundary of Barangay Saclit in Sadanga and Tinglayan.[7][8]
Cultivation history
In 1990 northern Luzon and the central Visayas were the centres of cannabis cultivation in the Philippines. The State Department's narcotics report of March that year said that farmers in northern Luzon, whom it called "hill tribes", had become aware of the crop's profitability, and that a number of them had shifted from vegetables and rice to cannabis.[9] The department's report of 2007 said that the New People's Army had reportedly been involved in large-scale cultivation in "the Cordilleras Region of Northern Luzon" since the mid-1980s.[10]
In Tinoc, whose vegetables went out on foot to the nearest road, some farmers grew marijuana "when the road was still farther away"; A. Albano, who studied the farming of western Ifugao, calls it "a much lighter but more valuable (though illegal) agricultural commodity".[5]: 44 On or about 3 August 2000, according to a charge in a case that the Supreme Court decided in 2008, a marijuana plantation of about ten hectares was kept on public land at Mount Churyon in Betwagan, Sadanga.[6] In May 2005 a raid led by the Cordillera police director found an 11.5-hectare plantation at Sitio Mulam in Ahin, Tinoc, and 1.085 million fully grown plants and 316,600 seedlings there were burned.[3]
In December 2006 police and local officials uprooted and burned 30,000 fully grown plants on more than two hectares of forest at Sitio Bay-O in Sabsaba, Santol; the director of the Ilocos regional police said the site was "believed to be the production base of the New People's Army".[11] In 2011 the State Department wrote of a "Golden Green Triangle" in mountainous northern Luzon, long known for marijuana production and trafficking. Cultivation had been carried on openly for 40 years in Santol, often considered the country's largest source, and a joint operation not long before had "neutralized" an estimated 90 percent of the plantations in the Santol area.[4]
In 2020 the director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency for the Cordillera said that marijuana was being farmed like a high-value crop. The plants on a plantation found on the Sadanga–Tinglayan boundary were, he said, well kept and evenly spaced, against claims that they grew wild. The mayor of Sadanga said that people from the barangays of Buscalan and Bugnay had been encroaching on his town's land to plant marijuana.[7] The same year the Cordillera regional police director said of the Cordillera that "we are the majority of the source of marijuana".[12]
Alternative development
The Dangerous Drugs Board funded sericulture programmes in the Benguet municipalities of Kapangan, Kibungan and Bakun from 2008, and from 2009 a programme of agroforestry, coffee, citrus and temperate vegetables in Tinglayan and an integrated agricultural production programme in Santol.[13]: 20 By 2009, to frustrate the rapid replanting of harvested marijuana, the board had developed alternative livelihood programmes and begun a pilot silk-production programme in the Cordilleras of northern Luzon, where, the State Department said that year, 70 percent of the country's marijuana was cultivated.
Growing Areas
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Growing area | Locality | Collected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KHA-PHL-UNK-0120210001 | Filipino Kibungan 2021 | Kibungan | ||
| TLT-PHL-BEN-0120220001 | Kibungan 2022 | Kibungan | ||
| TLT-PHL-KAL-0120220001 | Buscalan Kalinga 2022 | Tinglayan | Buscalan | |
| TLT-PHL-KAL-0120220002 | Violeta Kalinga 2022 | Tinglayan | Buscalan |
Enforcement
In September 2021 the Cordillera police ran a week-long operation, Oplan Herodotus, against plantation sites in the mountain ranges of Benguet, Kalinga and Mountain Province, with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the police drug enforcement group and the armed forces. It targeted Tacadang and Badeo in Kibungan, Kayapa in Bakun, Loccong and Mount Chumanchil in Tinglayan, and Saclit in Sadanga.[2] Between 2022 and June 2024 the eradication missions of the Cordillera police uprooted 8.45 million plants across their region.[14] On 16 November 2024 the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency burned 45,000 fully grown plants on a single site of about 1,800 square metres in Saclit; no cultivators were caught.[15] On 14 September 2026 about 36,000 fully grown plants on a 6,000-square-metre parcel of public land were destroyed on the boundary of Saclit and Tinglayan.[8]
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cullinane, M. (16 October 2026). "Relief". Philippines. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Dalizon, A.P. (28 September 2021). "CAR PNP's 'Oplan Herodotus' net nearly P500M marijuana". People's Journal. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Dumlao, A. (23 May 2005). "CAR cops torch P220-M marijuana plants in Ifugao". Philstar.com. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (2011). 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) (Report). Vol. I. United States Department of State. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Albano, A. (2025). "From rice to vegetable terraces: agricultural transition and sustainability in western Ifugao, Philippines". Southeast Asian Studies. 14 (1): 37–65. doi:10.20495/seas.14.1_37.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "People of the Philippines v. Ricardo Alunday, G.R. No. 181546". Supreme Court of the Philippines. 3 September 2008. Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via The LawPhil Project.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dumlao, A. (9 August 2020). "PDEA: Raided plantations disprove marijuana grows naturally in Cordillera". Philstar.com. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Quitasol, A. (15 September 2026). "P7.2M marijuana plants destroyed in Cordillera". Daily Tribune. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ Bureau of International Narcotics Matters (March 1990). International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (PDF) (Report). United States Department of State. pp. 314–317. Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ↑ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (March 2007). "Southeast Asia". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ Tawid News Team (16 December 2006). "P6-M marijuana plants uprooted". Tawid News Magazine. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Llanes, J. (21 February 2020). "Aggressive illegal weed eradication in place". SunStar. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ Dangerous Drugs Board (2016). Dimaculangan, E.M.L. (ed.). Annual Report 2016 (PDF) (Report). Dangerous Drugs Board. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ Cabreza, V. (4 August 2024). "Cordillera cops eye 'survey' in drives vs marijuana plantations". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ Abarca, C. (18 November 2024). "PDEA burns P9 million worth of marijuana plants in Mt. Province". Inquirer.net. Retrieved 19 October 2026.