Amazing stories about the artifacts transcend from generation to generation where the Tingguians viewed that Kaboniyan, the benevolent spirit or the creator or God, had rewarded industrious farmers and hunters whom he appreciated with talking jars and agates hanging in branches of plants near the cave where he lived. Cabildo confirmed the story about the talking jar. He is the grandson of Magsawi, the hunter who owned the famous talking jar. He was from Patok, Peñarrubia, Abra. He claimed that Magsawi had a hard time catching the eluding talking jar, but an unknown voice suggested to Magsawi how to catch the jumping, running, and talking jar. Magsawi had to kill a pig without young and offer the blood to the spirit. After Magsawi complied, he was able to catch the jar. The story spread and was extensively published. Tingguian elders were happy talking about the generosity and support of Kaboniyan to the Tingguians. There are other remarkable stories cited in the folktales of the Tingguians. One of them was when Kaboniyan had turned the water that dropped from the bodies of the ladies taking a bath in a river into agates a long, long time ago. The Tingguians postulate that the jars or the beads were either from Kaboniyan or from their ancestors. Whatever the case may be, the stories are mysterious and enchanting!

Movements tell stories of oppression and liberation. They critique the power relations that exist. They offer alternative visions of the homeland they hope to build. This volume looks at the Moro and Cordillera movements as told in their own words. Within and among these movement organizations in the Philippines, their constructed identities and claims for demanding the right to self-determination differed and evolved over time. The author shows the significant intertextuality in the discourse of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which broke away from the Moro National Liberation Front. She traces the drift to heightened ethnonationalism in the case of the Cordillera Peoples’ Liberation Army when it split from the national democratic Cordillera People’s Democratic Front. She reflects on where these mobilizations are now, and the strands of discourses that have remained salient in current times.

The election of Ferdinand Marcos to the presidency of the Republic of the Philippines coincided with the conclusion of the work of Vatican II in 1965; and Marcos's dictatorial policies would inevitably clash with the Vatican's call for the clergy to advocate greater social justice for the poor. In this authoritative account of the role of the Catholic Church in the recent history of the Philippines, Robert L. Youngblood traces the political engagement of the Church over the twenty years between Marcos's election and his ouster from power in 1986. Drawing upon extensive research, Youngblood explains how, although church and state professed to share the goal of improving the welfare of the poor, Marcos's economic development policies and oppressive rule created church opposition which helped accelerate the collapse of his regime. Youngblood considers the evolution of church programs from social action projects, such as the organization of cooperatives and credit unions, to the development of social justice programs that emphasized the creation of more democratic and caring communities. He examines the dynamics by which the leaders of the Philippine Roman Catholic and Protestant churches moved from a brief period of goodwill toward the Marcos dictatorship to considerable opposition by the late 1970s, as church-sponsored work among the poor was increasingly viewed by the regime as subversive. Youngblood shows that after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in 1983, the deterioration of the standard of living of average Filipinos, along with Marcos's repressive policies toward the churches and other abuses in the name of national security, were factors which impelled powerful church figures to actively oppose the dictatorship. Tracing the internal deliberations of the Philippine churches as they came to take the lead in opposing human rights abuses, Marcos against the Church deepens our understanding of problematic relations between church and state. Historians and social scientists interested in the Philippines and modern Southeast Asia, historians of religion, political scientists working in comparative politics and political development, and others concerned with issues of human rights will want to read it.