28/09/2026
𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬
For years, the forest was where Jane Dulay went because she had to. It offered cover when her life was caught in conflict, a place where she could disappear among the trees and wait for danger to pass. Today, she enters the same forest for an entirely different reason. Wearing the uniform of a DENR Forest Ranger, she walks its trails to protect the trees, watersheds, and communities that depend on them.
“The forest used to be my hiding place. Today, that same forest is my office, and my job is to protect it.”
Dulay’s story is among the quieter, more personal accounts of how four decades of peace have changed lives in the Cordillera.
Once associated with a conflict group, Dulay is now a regular government employee entrusted with protecting forests in Mountain Province. Her journey from conflict to public service began with an opportunity created through the peace process, allowing her to rebuild her life through stable work and eventually become a permanent member of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
In 2013, Dulay was hired as a forest guard through the partnership between the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and DENR. Her salary was initially funded by OPAPP.
The opportunity gave her more than employment. It gave her a way to rebuild her life, earn through work, and find a new purpose in the same landscape that had once been part of a life shaped by conflict.
In 2019, DENR assumed the funding of her salary, and Dulay became a permanent Forest Ranger.
“I went from hiding in the woods to actively guarding them,” she said.
Dulay’s journey is part of a broader effort to turn the gains of peace into concrete opportunities for former members of conflict groups.
Through the Bantay Gubat Program, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) and DENR have provided former rebels, particularly members of the Cordillera Bodong Administration-Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CBA-CPLA), opportunities to take on formal roles as forest rangers.
A total of 550 Bantay Gubat members have been integrated into formal government roles. One of those is Reneal Ondon, a Bantay Gubat member assigned under CENRO Conner in Apayao who likewise transitioned into a permanent DENR Forest Ranger.
Ondon recounted how the trust extended by DENR and OPAPRU gave him a path toward a more stable role in government service.
“Dahil sa tiwala ng DENR at OPAPRU, nabigyan ako ng pagkakataon na umangat bilang forest protection officer sa loob ng dalawang taon, at ngayon po, sa awa ng Diyos isa na akong forest ranger,” Ondon said.
For Ondon, the uniform he now wears carries a meaning that goes beyond his position.
“Ang uniporme ko bilang forest ranger ay hindi lang basta uniporme; ito ay simbolo ng peace agreement, patunay na ang anak ng nakipaglaban noon ay maari palang maging tagapaglingkod at tagapagligtas ng batas ng kalikasan,” he added.
His words capture the larger promise of the Bantay Gubat Program: that the people whose lives were once shaped by conflict can also become part of protecting the communities and natural resources they once knew in another context.
The program brings together two objectives that might once have seemed worlds apart: helping former combatants build stable livelihoods while placing them in the service of protecting the environment.
For Dulay, the connection is deeply personal.
The forest was once a place where she sought refuge. Through the peace process, it became a place where she could build a livelihood. Eventually, it became her workplace and the place she was entrusted to protect.
Her story was shared during the 40th anniversary commemoration of the 1986 Mount Data Sipat Peace Agreement on September 19, 2026, at Mount Data Hotel in Bauko, Mountain Province.
The commemoration looked back at a defining moment in Cordillera history. On September 13, 1986, the national government and the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA), led by Fr. Conrado Balweg, forged the Mount Data Sipat, marking the cessation of hostilities and opening the way for sustained peace negotiations.
The historic agreement became part of the developments that eventually led to the establishment of the Cordillera Administrative Region through Executive Order No. 220 in 1987.
Forty years later, the legacy of that peace process can be seen beyond the agreements, negotiations, and institutions that followed. It can be seen in the lives of people who found opportunities to rebuild after conflict.
Dulay and Ondon are among them.
Their stories were among the testimonies and recognitions featured during the anniversary program, which highlighted beneficiaries and former combatants whose lives have been shaped by continuing peace and development initiatives.
Their journeys differ, but each reflects a different dimension of what happens when a peace process moves beyond agreements and creates opportunities for people to build lives within their communities.
For Dulay and Ondon, that opportunity led them back to the forest. Only this time, they were no longer there to hide. They were there to protect it.
As Forest Rangers, they now help safeguard the forests they once knew from a very different side of life. Their responsibilities have given the mountains a new meaning, one once associated with uncertainty and conflict.
The transformation is difficult to overlook: people whose lives were once connected to armed conflict are now wearing government uniforms and helping enforce the laws that protect the country's forests.
For Dulay, peace is not only something remembered through an anniversary. It is something she has experienced through stable employment, the dignity of public service, and the chance to imagine a future beyond the circumstances that once defined her life.
“I will always be thankful to OPAPP and DENR for giving me stability, a real future, and a second chance,” she said.
Forty years after the Sipat was forged at Mount Data, their stories offer a glimpse of what a peace agreement can become over time. And for people like Jane Dulay and Reneal Ondon, it has become a new way of serving the land they once knew through conflict.
The forest remains the same. Their place in it has changed.
