Tinglayan
More actions
| Tinglayan | |
|---|---|
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2026 | |
| |
| Rice terraces at Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Cordillera Central |
| Geography | |
| Country | Philippines |
| Province/State | Kalinga |
| Municipality | Tinglayan |
| Coordinates | 17.25, 121.03 |
| Landscape | |
| Terrain | Mountains |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2025–2026 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 2 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Tinglayan is a landrace cannabis growing area in the municipality of Tinglayan, Kalinga province, in the Cordillera Administrative Region of northern Luzon, Philippines.[1] Most of the plantations that police have found in the municipality were on or around Mount Chumanchil in Barangay Loccong.[2] The Dangerous Drugs Board reported an eradication operation in Tinglayan in 2016, and since 2018 police have found plantation sites in the barangays of Loccong, Buscalan, Butbut Proper, Ngibat and Tulgao.[3][4][5]
Geography
Tinglayan has a land area of 283 square kilometres, divided into 20 barangays. The 2020 census counted 13,148 inhabitants.[1] Barangay Loccong had 504 inhabitants and Buscalan 809.[6][7] The elevation at the coordinates of Loccong is estimated at about 1,880 metres, and at those of Buscalan at about 1,010 metres.[6][7] The seed seller The Landrace Team puts Buscalan at 1,700 metres for one of its lines and at 1,400 to 1,700 metres for another.[8][9]
Mount Chumanchil lies in Loccong.[10] In September 2021 police destroyed plantations there and at Sitio Ballay in Barangay Tulgao.[11] In September 2026 plantations were destroyed on public land along the boundary between Barangay Saclit in Sadanga, Mountain Province, and Tinglayan.[12]
In the eight years to 2024 Tinglayan became a destination for tattoo tourists drawn by Apo Whang-od, a Kalinga mambabatok (traditional tattooist).[2]
Cultivation
The Cordillera regional police chief said in 2024 that, flying over Mount Chumanchil by helicopter, police had found the plantations in kaingin (slash-and-burn) clearings. The growers harvested one part of the mountain, then burned and planted another, and later returned to prepare new plantations on the first. Police also found makeshift shelters holding provisions and equipment for the farmers who tended the plantations.[2]
The 18 sites destroyed in September 2021 covered 7.1 hectares between them.[11] The 10 sites destroyed on Mount Chumanchil in May 2026 covered about 9.5 hectares and held about 1.14 million fully grown plants.[10] The 81,500 plants destroyed across five barangays on 13 January 2026 grew on about 5,200 square metres, and their sites had been abandoned before the police arrived.[5]
Officials told SunStar in 2016 that the marijuana of Kalinga was more potent than that of Benguet. The director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said that Kalinga marijuana was made into hashish because of its quality and was often taken abroad.[13] The Landrace Team sells two lines it calls domesticates from Buscalan, Buscalan Kalinga and Violeta Kalinga.[8][9]
Enforcement
In August 2016 an operation in Tinglayan, OPLAN Greenchill, eradicated 15 sites covering 48 hectares, the largest of the year in the Dangerous Drugs Board's annual report.[3] Between 27 and 29 April 2018 police and the drug enforcement agency uprooted and burned 860,000 plants and seedlings in Buscalan and Loccong.[4] In two days of operations in September 2021 police uprooted about 795,000 fully grown plants and seized 52.2 kilograms of dried leaves and stalks on Mount Chumanchil and at Sitio Ballay.[11]
The Cordillera police said in 2024 that some buyers came to Tinglayan posing as tourists and were usually caught in transit as they left Kalinga. The Cordillera police's regional chief said that only one farmer, an elderly man caught drying marijuana, had been arrested that year.[2]
The Kalinga provincial police reported 20 eradication operations in Tinglayan between 16 December 2025 and 6 January 2026, which destroyed 159,100 fully grown plants.[14] On 13 January 2026 operations under OPLAN "MAGINAM 01-01/2026" and OPLAN "GREEN GOLD 4" destroyed about 52,000 plants in Loccong, 10,500 in Tulgao East, 8,000 in Butbut Proper, 6,000 in Ngibat and 5,000 in Buscalan. No one was arrested.[5]
On 17 and 18 May 2026 the Cordillera regional police destroyed about 1.14 million fully grown plants at 10 sites on Mount Chumanchil.[10] The national police counted them in two operations in Loccong, about 840,000 plants in one and 300,000 on 25,000 square metres in the other.[15] The Dangerous Drugs Board named the operation OPLAN "Revisit Everest" and said that it included tree planting and a flag-raising ceremony at the site.[16] On 14 September 2026 a team led by the drug enforcement agency's Mountain Province office uprooted and burned about 36,000 plants on a 6,000-square-metre parcel on the Saclit boundary. No cultivators were caught at the site.[12]
Alternative development
From 2009 the Dangerous Drugs Board funded agroforestry, coffee, citrus and temperate-vegetable programmes in Tinglayan.[3] In 2017 the Department of Agriculture offered production loans of up to ₱20,000 a hectare to convert marijuana plantations in Kalinga to coffee. Tinglayan was the priority municipality and Loccong the priority village. The department gave 10,000 Arabica seedlings to the Loccong Gardeners Association. The mayor of Tinglayan, Sacrament Gumilab, asked for a ₱90 million farm-to-market road from Tulgao through Loccong to Buscalan, a route leading to more than 85 hectares of marijuana plantations. The agriculture secretary approved the road.[17]
In 2022 the Cordillera peace and order council and regional development council endorsed a master plan drawn up by the Tinglayan government to move growers to other crops. A local non-governmental organisation formed the Mount Chumanchil Task Force to find them other livelihoods. One proposal from a dialogue with Tinglayan officials was a new road to give Mount Chumanchil's residents access to markets for vegetables. In 2024 the Cordillera police said they might carry out an economic survey of how much the growers earned and how they spent it.[2]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| TLT-PHL-KAL-0120220001 | Buscalan Kalinga 2022 | Buscalan | |
| TLT-PHL-KAL-0120220002 | Violeta Kalinga 2022 | Buscalan |
Conservation status
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Tinglayan, Province of Kalinga". PhilAtlas. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Cabreza, V. (4 August 2024). "Cordillera cops eye 'survey' in drives vs marijuana plantations". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Dangerous Drugs Board (2016). Dimaculangan, E.M.L. (ed.). Annual Report 2016 (PDF) (Report). Dangerous Drugs Board. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "P17M worth of marijuana destroyed in Kalinga". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 1 May 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Padilla, E. (16 January 2026). "Authorities Destroy ₱16.3 Million Worth of Marijuana Plants in Tinglayan Operations". Daily Chronicle. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Loccong, Municipality of Tinglayan, Province of Kalinga". PhilAtlas. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Buscalan, Municipality of Tinglayan, Province of Kalinga". PhilAtlas. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Buscalan Kalinga (Philippines)". The Landrace Team. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Violeta Kalinga". The Landrace Team. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Palangchao, H. (21 May 2026). "Kalinga police destroy P228M worth of marijuana in major drug operation". The Manila Times. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Mendoza, J.E. (18 September 2021). "PNP torches P192-M worth of marijuana in Kalinga town". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Quitasol, A. (15 September 2026). "P7.2M marijuana plants destroyed in Cordillera". Daily Tribune. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ Madrazo, V.K.F. (9 August 2016). "P1-billion marijuana seized in Kalinga". SunStar. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ Asurin, R.G. (9 January 2026). "Kalinga police reports success in anti-crime, drug eradication operations". Philippine Information Agency. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
- ↑ "P228M in marijuana destroyed in two-day operations in Kalinga". GMA News Online. 20 May 2026. Retrieved 17 October 2026.
- ↑ "DDB recognizes PRO CAR's historic ₱228M marijuana eradication in Mt. Chumanchil, Kalinga". Dangerous Drugs Board. 27 May 2026. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "Agri secretary initiates switch from marijuana to coffee farming". SunStar. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2026.