When Mountains Weep: The Sierra Madre's Silent Sacrifice

(Photo credit: Crissha Mae Fernandez via Change.Org)

I woke up on November 10, 2025, like every other resident in Nueva Ecija, holding my breath. Super Typhoon Uwan—international name Fung-wong—had been barreling toward Luzon with terrifying intensity, and the forecasts promised devastation. I'd already moved everything that could get ruined by water to higher ground. My neighbors had stocked up on candles and canned goods. Aurora and Isabela were bracing for the worst, and here in Nueva Ecija, we knew we weren't far behind.

But by dawn, while the winds were still strong—howling through the morning and into the next day—we realized we'd been spared the worst. The Sierra Madre, our ancient guardian, had absorbed the storm's fury once again. What could have been catastrophic had been reduced to something we could endure.

I scrolled through social media that morning, and my timeline was flooded with gratitude. Posts praising the "backbone of Luzon" were everywhere. Former lawmaker and indigenous rights advocate Teddy Baguilat captured what many of us were feeling when he wrote: "Save us"—a plea for the mountain ranges themselves, beyond a simple prayer for safety. Because while we thank the Sierra Madre after every typhoon, we are simultaneously destroying the very shield that protects us.

This contradiction sits heavy in my morning coffee today. How do we express gratitude with one hand while signing death warrants with the other?

The Guardian We Take for Granted

Stretching over 540 kilometers from Cagayan in the north to Quezon in the south, the Sierra Madre is more than just the Philippines' longest mountain range. It is Luzon's first and most critical line of defense against Pacific typhoons. Rising to 6,283 feet, this mountain wall stands between millions of Filipinos—including those of us in Nueva Ecija—and the full force of climate-induced disasters.

The science behind its protection is elegant in its simplicity. When tropical cyclones approach from the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Madre's elevation disrupts their vertical structure, slowing wind speeds and weakening intensity before storms reach populated inland areas like ours. According to recent studies, the range effectively reduces wind exposure by 1% to 13% and provides particularly strong protection for the Cagayan Valley, where both wind exposure and rainfall are reduced.

But there's a trade-off that residents along its western slopes know all too well. While the Sierra Madre weakens typhoon winds, it simultaneously increases rainfall by 25% to 55% for areas along its western slopes through orographic lifting—when moist air is forced upward by the mountain's terrain, causing intensified precipitation. The mountain absorbs the violence of the wind, but amplifies the water. Even in protection, there is sacrifice.

The Sierra Madre shields ten provinces: Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Quezon. That protection extends to approximately 1.4 million hectares of land, sustaining countless communities, agricultural lands, and urban centers. Without it, the death toll from every typhoon would multiply exponentially.

This mountain range is more than a physical barrier; it functions as a complete life-support system. Home to around 40% of the Philippines' remaining forest cover, the Sierra Madre harbors over 3,500 plant species, 58% of which are endemic. It supports 291 species of birds and 25 endemic mammals. The Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park alone—the country's largest protected area at 287,861 hectares—is considered potentially the single most important site for bird conservation not just on Luzon, but possibly in the entire Philippines.

Yet knowing all this, understanding intellectually what the Sierra Madre means for our survival, we are cutting it down.

The Wounds We Inflict

Mining: The Legal Destruction

In May 2025, satellite images went viral showing a deforested expanse in Dinapigue, Isabela that appeared stripped bare—raw earth where forest once stood. I remember seeing those images and feeling sick to my stomach. Public outrage was immediate and fierce. How could this happen in the Sierra Madre, our natural fortress?

The uncomfortable answer: it's perfectly legal.

Dinapigue Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corporation led by billionaire Manuel "Manny" Zamora, operates under a 25-year Mineral Production Sharing Agreement issued in July 2007, set to expire in July 2032. The company extracts nickel, iron, cobalt, and chromite. They hold all required permits and environmental clearances from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau. The mining site lies outside the boundaries of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park—technically in a legal mineral reservation area.

But legality doesn't equal wisdom, and compliance doesn't equal harmlessness.

As of December 2022, at least two metallic mines and 57 quarry operations function within the Sierra Madre mountain range and its foothills. Mining claims cover a staggering 811,541 hectares across the corridor. That's over half the total land area of the range, claimed and potentially exploitable.

DMC asserts its commitment to environmental protection, claiming to have planted over 626,402 seedlings for reforestation efforts as of the first quarter of 2025. They emphasize socioeconomic benefits: jobs, education, health services, and development initiatives for local communities. The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines defends the project vigorously, stating that "claims of deforestation or destruction of the Sierra Madre are simply not true."

But the images don't lie. Vast swaths of mountainside stand naked and vulnerable. Mining scars the landscape, making slopes prone to erosion and deadly landslides, especially during typhoons. The very storms the Sierra Madre is supposed to weaken become more dangerous because we've stripped away the forest that stabilizes the soil and absorbs the water.

The Kaliwa Dam: Water Security at What Cost?

Another China-funded megaproject carves deeper into the Sierra Madre's heart. The Kaliwa Dam, part of the New Centennial Water Source project, promises to supply 600 million liters of water per day to address an impending water crisis expected by 2027.

With an approved cost that has ballooned to P15.3 billion (originally P12.25 billion) and funded through a $211.12-million loan from China's Export-Import Bank, construction began in 2019 but progress has been painfully slow. As of December 2024, five years into construction, the dam is only 24.8% complete. It's expected to become operational by 2027, two years behind its original 2022 target.

The price tag extends far beyond pesos.

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System acknowledges the dam will flood 9,700 hectares of forests. The reservoir will submerge 93 to 113 hectares of forestland, including 12 sites considered sacred by 11 indigenous communities. Between 1,485 and 5,000 Dumagat-Remontado indigenous people—estimates vary wildly depending on who's counting—face displacement from ancestral lands their communities have inhabited for generations.

The Kaliwa Watershed has already lost approximately 444 hectares of forest cover from 2019 to 2023 according to Global Forest Watch—roughly 100 hectares per year. While some experts note this isn't as significant as losses in other protected areas, they acknowledge the sobering reality: "a loss is a loss… Once forests are gone, it's gone."

Indigenous leaders describe the dam as an existential threat. For the semi-nomadic Dumagat-Remontado people, the Sierra Madre isn't just their home—it's an extension of their identity. They define good health as including the well-being of their ancestral lands and waters, not only the absence of disease. The dam will restrict their freedom of movement, separate them from cultural spaces and burial grounds, and fundamentally sever their relationship with the ecosystem that sustains them physically and spiritually.

Since 2020, indigenous groups report that their right to roam the Sierra Madre has been constrained by checkpoints and dam site closures enforced by Philippine security forces. Communities in General Nakar's downstream areas have had no access to the dam site for five years. This is dispossession in real time, sanitized by development rhetoric.

Illegal Logging and Quarrying: Death by a Thousand Cuts

The dramatic megaprojects grab headlines, but it's the relentless daily extraction that bleeds the Sierra Madre dry.

Illegal logging remains pervasive despite a total log ban instituted in 1991. A 2023 BBC report noted that 90% of the original Sierra Madre rainforest is now gone. Illegal loggers work under cover of darkness, chainsaws in hand, cutting trees for housing and construction projects to feed their families. Forest rangers attempting to stop them face violence—114 environmental activists killed in the Philippines were from indigenous communities, many defending Sierra Madre forests.

One illegal logger named Marc, interviewed by the BBC, captured the desperate moral calculus: "People say illegal logging is destroying nature, but God gave all this to us so we can use it. My message to people is to not get angry at us because we don't actually want to do this. We can only get our money for basic necessities from farming our land. Others can afford to get mad because they have other sources of livelihood but for us, we have none."

Poverty fuels destruction. Logging becomes not just an economic choice but a survival imperative for some of the Philippines' poorest citizens. Settlers living on the lower slopes depend on work in logging and charcoal-making. Slash-and-burn farming, fuel-wood collection, and residential expansion contribute to forest degradation estimated at 1,400 hectares per year.

Quarrying operations add another layer of devastation. In Rizal province alone, quarries have carved into mountainsides in municipalities like Rodriguez, San Mateo, Angono, and Binangonan. After Typhoon Ondoy in 2009 caused catastrophic flooding in Marikina City, quarrying activities were identified as a major contributing factor. Yet nearly a decade later, quarries continue operating.

Local residents and officials call for shutdowns, arguing that environmental damage and flooding during typhoon season far outweigh economic benefits. But the Department of Environment and Natural Resources grants permits, politicians have documented ties to mining and quarrying companies, and the machinery keeps grinding.

Real Estate and Infrastructure: Paving Over Protection

Development creeps upward from the foothills. Real estate projects encroach on forest land. Road construction opens previously inaccessible areas to exploitation. Land conversion devours farms and forests.

The conflict at Masungi Georeserve in Rizal province exemplifies the battle playing out across the range. Since 2017, the Masungi Georeserve Foundation has fought to protect and restore 2,700 hectares through a Memorandum of Agreement with the DENR. They've reforested degraded land, protected biodiversity, and created a conservation model praised by the late DENR Secretary Gina Lopez as "the only good thing happening in the area."

Yet in March 2025, the DENR unilaterally canceled its contract with Blue Star Construction Development Corporation, the georeserve's developer, and ordered them to vacate within 15 days. The foundation faces constant threats from illegal resort owners, quarry companies, and armed personnel occupying protected land. Park rangers have been assaulted, shot at, and intimidated. Bullets left in cardboard boxes serve as warnings.

The foundation asserts this is "part of a larger, more insidious effort to weaken environmental protection, silence advocates, and clear the path for selfish commercial interests to exploit our natural resources." When conservationists are treated as obstacles rather than partners, when the government agency tasked with environmental protection attacks those doing conservation work, something has gone profoundly wrong.

The Numbers Don't Lie

From 2001 to 2022, the Philippines lost 1.42 million hectares of tree cover—a 7.6% decrease contributing 848 metric tons of CO2 emissions. The country's total forest cover now stands at 7.22 million hectares or 24.07% of land mass. That's catastrophically below the 17.8 million hectares recorded in 1934.

The Sierra Madre, despite being home to 40% of the nation's remaining forest cover, faces continuing degradation. A study of the Southern Sierra Madre spanning General Nakar, Quezon, and Rodriguez, Rizal found that from 2016 to 2022, forest coverage continued to decline. In some areas, over 10,000 hectares of forest transformed into shrubland after the pandemic. Forest land was lost to open or barren areas—3,348 hectares—and even to agricultural conversion.

Between 2011 and 2018, forest loss in the Sierra Madre increased, negating reforestation efforts. Data from GMA News Research shows that the more than 1.8 million hectares of forest in Sierra Madre in 2003 have been significantly reduced.

And mining claims continue to blanket over 811,541 hectares—more than half the mountain range's total area.

Why This Should Terrify You

Every hectare of forest lost weakens the Sierra Madre's protective capacity. Every mining site carved into mountainsides destabilizes slopes. Every dam flooding ancestral forests removes natural water absorption systems. Every road cut through pristine wilderness opens pathways for further exploitation.

The next typhoon will be more deadly. And the one after that. And the one after that.

Without forest roots to stabilize soil and vast canopies to absorb heavy rain, landslides and flash floods become more common—especially as climate change increases the frequency and severity of storms. Typhoon Ulysses in November 2020 demonstrated what happens when the Sierra Madre is degraded. Marikina City and surrounding areas in Rizal were submerged. The aftermath forced Rizal's provincial government and the DENR to suspend industrial quarry operations and launch investigations.

But investigations fade. Outrage dissipates. Operations resume.

The Sierra Madre's diminished capacity means that communities once protected now face the full violence of typhoons. Cagayan Valley, which receives the most comprehensive protection from the range, remains vulnerable to extreme tropical cyclones even with the mountain barrier intact. For areas along the western slopes like Bulacan and Rizal, increased rainfall threats of 25% to 55% combine with reduced wind protection of only 3% to 8%. We're trading one danger for another, and losing ground on both fronts.

Beyond typhoon protection, we're destroying irreplaceable biodiversity. Species found nowhere else on Earth face extinction. The Philippine Eagle, Philippine crocodile, Isabela oriole, Philippine warty pig, and Philippine brown deer all depend on Sierra Madre habitats. As forests fragment and disappear, these creatures lose their homes. We're witnessing real-time ecological collapse, documented but not stopped.

The indigenous peoples who have stewarded these lands for generations—11 distinct groups including the Agta or Dumagat, Alta, and Bungkalot—face cultural extinction alongside the forests. When ancestral domains are flooded by dams, mined for minerals, or carved into quarries, indigenous communities lose not just land but identity, spiritual connection, and thousands of years of ecological knowledge.

And for what? Jobs in communities that will be destroyed by the next superflooded typhoon? Water that could be supplied through less destructive watershed management and water conservation? Nickel ore shipped to processors abroad while Filipinos bear all the environmental costs?

The Pretense of Compliance

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this crisis is how destruction happens within legal frameworks. Mining companies hold valid permits. Dam projects pass environmental impact assessments. Quarries secure government clearances.

The Chamber of Mines defends Dinapigue Mining Corporation by emphasizing that "the project operated by Dinapigue Mining Corporation has received full approval from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources after a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment and extensive consultations with local stakeholders." They note that "stakeholders all agreed, with strict environmental safeguards in place, that the project could proceed."

But when the Department of Environment and Natural Resources—the very agency tasked with protecting the environment—becomes the entity issuing permits for its destruction, who guards the guardians? When "strict environmental safeguards" still result in satellite images showing deforested mountainsides, what do those safeguards actually safeguard?

The DENR's contradictory behavior extends to conservation efforts. While granting mining permits across 811,541 hectares of the Sierra Madre, the department simultaneously cancels agreements with organizations like the Masungi Georeserve Foundation that are actively restoring degraded land. While indigenous peoples march for nine days from General Nakar to Malacañang Palace pleading for their ancestral domains, the DENR pushes forward with dam construction.

There's a well-documented link between politicians and mining companies in the Philippines. Logging and mining have fueled political careers of many local and national politicians. That link must be broken, but it grows stronger with every permit issued, every contract signed, every opposition silenced.

The Groups Fighting Back

Despite overwhelming odds, coalitions persist in defending the Sierra Madre.

The Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance, a multi-stakeholder organization with direct contact to indigenous communities, works tirelessly to raise awareness and advocate for protection. Established advocates like Marcelino Tena, a 60-year-old Dumagat-Remontado leader, document environmental changes: "Frequent storms, extreme rainfall and heat, strong winds, flooding, and rising water levels." Climate change has led to depletion of primary flowering plants and trees, disrupting even traditional livelihoods like honey collection.

Chairperson Aracelli B. Mercado and the SSMNA emphasize women's often under-appreciated roles in disaster resilience and biodiversity conservation. They advocate for integrating women's voices in planning and decision-making processes for disaster management.

Former Ifugao Representative Teddy Baguilat Jr. articulates what many of us feel: "Parang kailan lang ay taos-puso tayong nagpapasalamat sa Sierra Madre dahil sa kanyang pagsalo sa bagsik ng mga bagyo. Pero ngayon, unti-unti na itong nasisira dahil kinakakalbo ng mining at development projects. Hindi lang ito pagkawala ng kagubatan, kundi panganib sa ating kinabukasan." (It was just recently that we thanked the Sierra Madre wholeheartedly for absorbing the fury of typhoons. But now, it's slowly being destroyed because it's being stripped bare by mining and development projects. This means losing forests—and putting our future in danger.)

Environmental groups like the Masungi Georeserve Foundation, the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples, the Federation of Environmental Advocates in Cagayan Valley, and countless local organizations continue advocating, documenting abuses, and calling for accountability.

On June 19, 2012, in response to the devastation of Tropical Storm Ondoy in 2009, President Benigno Aquino III signed Proclamation No. 413, declaring every September 26 as "Save Sierra Madre Day." The proclamation calls "all sectors of society and the government" to join hands in conservation activities.

But proclamations without enforcement are just words on paper. Save Sierra Madre Day comes and goes each year while mining continues, logging persists, and dams rise.

The Path We Must Choose

There's a proposed Watershed Protection Bill languishing in Congress that could provide legal teeth to conservation efforts. Advocates push for a Sierra Madre Council similar to the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, which would protect, conserve, utilize, and manage the range's environment effectively. These legislative measures have been discussed through a series of consultations with DENR offices across Regions 1, 2, 3, and 4-A, but remain unacted upon.

We need comprehensive review of all permits granted for mining in the Sierra Madre. We need to enforce existing environmental laws rather than finding loopholes around them. We need to break the documented links between politicians and extractive industries. We need to prioritize long-term ecological survival over short-term economic gains.

Most importantly, we need to recognize that the Sierra Madre's protection is an existential necessity, not mere sentimentality.

Every time a typhoon approaches, we Filipinos pray for the Sierra Madre to save us. We post grateful tributes after storms weaken. We call it our guardian, our backbone, our shield. But our actions tell a different story. We mine it, log it, dam it, quarry it, and develop it—all while knowing intellectually that we depend on it for survival.

This cognitive dissonance cannot continue. Either we mean what we say when we call the Sierra Madre our protector, or those words are hollow performance. Either we commit to genuine conservation with enforceable protections and accountability, or we accept that future typhoons will kill more people, flood more cities, and destroy more livelihoods.

The Sierra Madre has shielded Luzon for millennia. It absorbed Super Typhoon Uwan's fury in November 2025, weakening the storm before it reached the provinces along its path—including us here in Nueva Ecija. It will face the next typhoon, and the next, and the next. Each time, it will be weaker than before, less forested, more degraded, less capable of protecting the millions of lives depending on it.

The question hanging in the morning air, bitter as coffee grounds, is this: How many more storms can the Sierra Madre withstand before it can no longer save us? And when that day comes—when the mines have extracted their profits, when the dams have been built, when the forests are gone—where will we turn for protection?

The mountains are weeping. We should be terrified.

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84. Philippines: Caught in the current – how nationalist - https://minorityrights.org/2023/06/19/philippines-caught-in-the-current-how-nationalist-development-threatens-minority-groups-dependent-on-the-sierra-madre/

85. Government urged to protect the Sierra Madre - https://philstar.com/headlines/2022/10/04/2214016/government-urged-protect-sierra-madre

86. EXPLAINER: Why the Masungi reforestation is a struggle - https://bulatlat.com/2025/08/05/explainer-why-the-masungi-reforestation-is-a-struggle/

87. BMB celebrates National Women's Month 2025 - https://bmb.gov.ph/index.php/component/content/article/78-press-release/4212-bmb-celebrates-national-women-s-month-2025

88. Be 'proactive' vs threats to park rangers – Masungi to DENR - https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1554968/be-proactive-vs-threats-to-park-rangers-masungi-to-denr

89. Dumagat and Alta Sacred Grounds of Ancestral Domain - https://iccaregistry.org/explore/philippines/dumagat-and-alta-sacred-grounds-of-ancestral-domain/

90. Save Sierra Madre Network | Infanta - https://facebook.com

91. Beyond the State's Failure to Protect: The Case of Masungi - https://dlsu.edu.ph

92. CCC calls for urgent protection of Sierra Madre - https://pna.gov.ph/articles/1232816

93. For years, Masungi Georeserve has faced relentless - https://facebook.com

94. A Philippine tribe that defeated a dam prepares to fight its - https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/a-philippine-tribe-that-defeated-a-dam-prepares-to-fight-its-rebirth/

95. Sentinel Times - https://facebook.com

96. DENR cancels deal with Masungi developer, orders them - https://abs-cbn.com/news/03/06/25/denr-cancels-deal-with-masungi-developer-orders-them-vacate