LAST week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed an executive order to establish the Unified National Policy Framework for Developing the Critical Minerals Industry that will lay down the guidelines for transforming the Philippines into a key player in the global critical minerals market.
Critical minerals such as lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements are driving the transition to low-carbon energy systems. They have also become indispensable in other strategic industries such as high-tech manufacturing, AI and digital systems, and aerospace and defense.
It is thus not surprising that global demand for critical minerals has soared. The International Energy Agency (IEA) sees the total market value for such minerals doubling from $409.74 billion to $799.03 billion by 2035.
The single biggest driver behind the surge is clean energy and transportation. Almost 200 kilograms of lithium, cobalt and nickel are needed to manufacture the battery of a single electric vehicle (EV).
Electronic and AI technologies also consume huge amounts of critical materials. One smartphone can be made up of over 30 minerals.
Mining the minerals and processing them are outpaced by surging demand. Close to $2 trillion needs to be invested by 2040 to scale up extraction, build secondary recycling facilities, and avoid double-digit structural shortfalls, according to the IEA.
A policy framework provides a comprehensive strategy for ensuring a critical-material value chain is secure and resilient. In its 2026 report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) that a critical-mineral policy must go beyond promoting value addition or moving from mining to processing.
“It should aim to foster broader economic diversification by strengthening backward, forward and lateral linkages between the mining sector and other productive sectors of the economy to harness critical minerals for structural transformation and sustainable development,” it said.
“Together, these measures can help developing economies turn critical minerals into engines of low-carbon industrialization and shared prosperity,” the IEA said.
There are weak links in the supply chain that need strengthening. “Mining capacity is expanding across diverse regions, but refining and downstream manufacturing capacity remains limited,” the IEA noted.
Reliance on the few dominant suppliers of critical materials creates an imbalance that grows as demand rises. China, for example, refines over 90 percent of the world’s extracted gallium, graphite, manganese and rare earths. Any disruption in its refining operations could have a catastrophic effect on the supply chain.
How a particular industry uses critical materials is also crucial. The way the IEA looks at it, “When materials have applications in strategic sectors such as semiconductors or defense, their security of supply becomes a crucial factor for economic and national security.”
The presidential order to create a framework for the critical materials industry must anticipate such challenges.
The Philippines has at least 9 million hectares of highly prospective areas with potential to host various mineral resources. Last year, the US International Trade Administration (ITA) said the country was among the world’s most mineralized countries and the largest exporter of nickel ore.
Executive Order 122 “shifts the national strategy toward maximizing the domestic value of these resources, moving beyond raw ore exportation to building integrated processing and manufacturing ecosystems,” Mines and Geosciences Bureau Director Larry Heradez explained.
The order mandates the government to promote the responsible development and utilization of critical minerals and support value-adding and downstream industries.
To this end, the Board of Investments will offer incentives for refining, battery production and side-stream industries.
EO 122 also prioritizes environmental protection and social and cultural development safeguards. Mining operations must ensure the social, cultural and economic well-being of host and neighboring communities.
Structural reforms will be carried out to revitalize the mining sector. A “use it or lose it” policy will penalize non-compliant or idle operations and reallocate freed-up mineral areas into declared reservations.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) will streamline permit processing, and a reorganized Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) will set up international sourcing standards, environmental safeguards and valuation protocols.
The government can even widen the framework’s scope later to include advancing cooperation on market access on a regional scale.
The framework has been set up. The next big step is making it work.
