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When I drew up, more than a decade ago, the vision and plan for a new smart and green metropolis for the Philippines, I recognized the need to curate the foundational locators of the Clark Green City (now New Clark City). The pioneer locators will shape the face and the future of this new metropolis. Hence, this must be done strategically and with deliberate haste.
Far more than the branding, we envisioned the New Clark City as not merely the center but the driver of innovation in the country. To do this, we made significant investment in building the Luzon Bypass Line to be the backbone of the national broadband strategy. For the development of human capital, BCDA donated 70 hectares of land for a new UP campus, 20 hectares for Technological University of the Philippines and another 20 hectares for the Philippine Science High School. For life sciences, I brought UP College of Medicine and Japan’s Riken Institute to build together the cutting-edge technologies for medicine. We brought first the institutions of learning, research and innovations.
The inclusion of the Philippines in Pax Silica in more than a thousand hectares of land in New Clark City ushers the transformative factor in our vision for Clark.
Silica is easy to overlook because it is everywhere. It is sand and stone, glass and fiber, the physical base of silicon chips and the digital economy that runs on them. It is ancient and modern at the same time. To speak of “Pax Silica” is to borrow from historical phrases like Pax Romana or Pax Americana, but to shift the focus away from empire and toward infrastructure, material intelligence and shared prosperity. Peace here is not the absence of conflict; it is the presence of systems that quietly work.
New Clark City is an ideal stage for this idea. Conceived as a disaster-resilient, low-density, mixed-use city, NCC is positioned away from major fault lines and flood zones, with the ambition to decongest Metro Manila and rebalance development across Luzon. Its master plan emphasizes green and blue infrastructure, walkability and digital connectivity. Yet plans alone do not guarantee outcomes. What will determine NCC’s success is whether its materials, technologies and governance structures are aligned around long-term public value rather than short-term extraction.
Here, silica becomes both literal and metaphorical. Literally, NCC’s buildings, roads and transit systems will be made of concrete, glass, ceramics and composites whose performance depends on silica. The environmental footprint of these materials matters. Decisions about sourcing aggregates, using low-carbon cement, deploying high-performance glass, or investing in modular construction will shape the city’s emissions profile for decades. A Pax Silica approach insists that material choices are not neutral — they are ethical and strategic decisions about resilience, climate responsibility and intergenerational equity.
Metaphorically, silica represents the information layer of the city. Silicon chips power sensors, data centers, communications networks and control systems that make a “smart city” possible. But smart does not automatically mean just. Data can optimize traffic and energy use, but it can also deepen inequalities if access is uneven or governance is opaque. Pax Silica calls for a civic digital infrastructure that is treated as a public good: interoperable, secure and oriented toward service delivery rather than surveillance or rent-seeking.
New Clark City has a chance to demonstrate this balance. Instead of proprietary systems locked into a single vendor, NCC can prioritize open standards and local capacity building. Universities, startups and technical schools in Central Luzon could be integrated into the city’s innovation ecosystem, ensuring that data science, urban analytics and materials research create local jobs rather than just imported solutions. Peace, in this sense, is economic inclusion anchored in knowledge.
There is also a geopolitical dimension worth acknowledging. The global economy is increasingly shaped by supply chains for semiconductors, solar panels, batteries and advanced materials — all domains tied, directly or indirectly, to silica. A city like NCC, if thoughtfully developed, could position the Philippines not merely as a consumer of these technologies but as a participant in their value chains: testing, assembly, software integration, or even niche manufacturing. Pax Silica suggests a form of development that is outward looking without being dependent, connected without being captive.
Critically, Pax Silica also demands humility. Sand mining, energy intensive data centers and sprawling construction can wreak ecological damage if poorly regulated. The surrounding landscapes of New Clark City — watersheds, farms and communities — must not be treated as expendable inputs. True peace with materials means understanding limits: designing compact urban forms, prioritizing public transport, reusing and recycling construction materials, and accounting for full life-cycle impacts.
Ultimately, the question is what kind of peace we want our cities to embody. Not the brittle peace of gated developments and privatized infrastructure, but a resilient peace rooted in shared systems. Silica, in all its forms, teaches us that strength often comes from structure rather than spectacle — from networks of atoms or circuits working together. New Clark City can learn from this lesson. If it does, it may become not just a new city, but a quieter model of how materials, technology and governance can align in the service of the common good.
