EXPORTERS have welcomed a critical minerals partnership between the Philippines and the United States, calling it an opportunity to attract investments and boost economic growth, but environmentalists claimed the government had sold out to Washington.
In a statement on Monday, the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc.(Philexport) said the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last week would boost industrial development and pivot the country from raw ore exports to domestic processing of mineral resources.
“This partnership is anticipated to attract investments, create jobs, and bolster the country’s role in the global high-tech supply chain,” the business group said.
The Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, on the other hand, said the MOU, signed by Environment Secretary Raphael Lotilla and US Undersecretary of State Jacob Helberg, was “nothing less than a brazen sell-out of our national patrimony.”
“This is a treasonous act that flings open the gates of our mountains, watersheds, and ancestral lands to intensified imperialist extraction,” it claimed in a statement on Sunday.
The bilateral partnership was sealed at the sidelines of the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by the US State Department, part of efforts by Washington to counter China’s dominance of the rare earths industry.
Philexport said it would boost Filipino-led mining companies’ access to the US market and secure supply chains.
“By enhancing responsible mining and processing capabilities, the Philippines is prepared to meet the global demand for materials critical to clean energy and technology,” it said.
Kalikasan, on the other hand, said the deal would lead to the liberalization of the country’s mining industry, contributing to environmental degradation and raising the likelihood of violence against anti-mining activists.
“This agreement glaringly serves the US empire’s scramble for nickel, copper, and cobalt, and not the welfare of the communities who will be displaced, poisoned, and militarized to extract them,” it said.
“Our mineral wealth is bleeding outward towards foreign mining conglomerates, to elite comprador capitalists, and to the corrupt bureaucrat class that rubber-stamps every destructive permit. What is left behind are devastated mountains, dead rivers, dried-up wells, and shattered communities.”
Mining, Kalikasan claimed, accounts for less than 1 percent of the economy and employs just half a percent of the nation’s workforce.
The Philippines, it continued, has been ranked as the deadliest country in Asia for land and environmental defenders for 12 consecutive years, with over 300 documented killings and one-third of the cases directly linked to mining.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), which announced the signing of the deal last Friday, said, “The MOU aims to advance Philippine economic policy away from the export of raw mineral ores toward increased domestic processing and value addition, supporting the country’s integration into global supply chains.”
Lotilla was quoted as saying that via the partnership, “we are building a Filipino-led industry that processes our own resources, creates high-skilled jobs, and strengthens our position in the global high-tech supply chain.”
“We will be able to keep more of the economic benefits of mining within the country.”
The DENR said that with the signing of the MOU, the Philippines joined other countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Asean neighbors Malaysia and Thailand, as partners of the US in securing reliable and diversified mineral supply chains.