OVER the past week, the volume of government cheerleading for the so-called Pax Silica initiative of the United States has grown noticeably louder and more desperate. The visit of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the Philippines this week in conjunction with the Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting probably has something to do with that, but it is also quite obvious the administration is beginning to panic about the mounting tidal wave of public dissent toward the idea. Calls for the government to reject Pax Silica have featured prominently in recent demonstrations surrounding the Asean meeting. And as another example, by Friday morning the number of posts on Facebook with the hashtag #NoToPaxSilica had exceeded 31,000; on Monday, they were less than 4,000.
The government’s effort to flood the zone with positive rhetoric — not substantial information, mind you — about Pax Silica this week has, by my count, included Palace spokesman Claire Castro, Presidential Communications Office chief Dave Gomez, Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino, and Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Josh Bingcang, along with frequent statements and social media posts coming out of the US Embassy, giving the impression that new US Ambassador to Manila Lee Lipton was dispatched here to the Philippines with the singular mission to get this deal done.
The promises being made by the various authorities, who have yet to provide any empirical evidence for their claims, are too fantastic to be believed. We can dismiss whatever Castro or Gomez has had to say about the initiative, because what could the public relations people possibly know about it, other than what they’re told by others. Similarly, Tolentino has not offered any justification for his recent claims that the project “could generate nearly 1 million jobs for Filipinos,” so we can assume he’s just repeating what he’s heard. Lipton, for his part, has publicly said the project could create “endless jobs,” which is even more ridiculous, but given that it’s his job to pursue the US’ ulterior motives, we can take that with a grain of salt.
Bingcang, however, is a little closer to the action, since the BCDA controls most of the proposed 1,618 hectares of land where the Pax Silica industrial estate would be located, and so he has become the government’s point man in trying to convince the public that the scheme is valuable and worth pursuing.
Spoiler alert: It’s not working.
In a press briefing in Malacañang on Thursday, Bingcang presented a collection of “myths” and “facts” about the Pax Silica project, as though a PowerPoint presentation is proof of anything. The first “myth” that he addressed was that the project will displace Indigenous communities, and the “fact” presented to counter that was that the project is outside ancestral Indigenous domains, and that livelihood and employment programs will be provided for the affected communities.
Although the government’s preference for taking the “trust us, bro” approach rather than backing any of its statements with actual documentary evidence makes it difficult to fact-check some things, it does appear that the first part of that assertion is indeed correct, and that no Indigenous communities are at risk of being displaced as of now, although that might change if the project is expanded. However, a number of farmers in Tarlac have already reported being asked to vacate their land for the project. While that is something that will have to be confirmed, if it is true, it is deeply alarming.
To begin with, the Philippines, food insecure as it is, cannot afford to lose any of its existing agricultural lands, and certainly not for a project in which the economic added value will be transferred to a foreign country. Beyond that, what acceptable “livelihood and employment programs” could the government possibly offer farmers who have farmed their entire lives, and probably have done so for generations? Farming in the Philippines is not exactly a path to prosperity for most, but quality of life is not something that can be discarded; the very idea that a job can be simply replaced is demeaning and disrespectful, unless the person involved asks for that change.
Another “myth” highlighted by Bingcang’s presentation is a complete red herring, because I have yet to hear of anyone even making the accusation, and that is the Pax Silica project will result in weapons manufacturing. There was an earlier idea floated for the US to develop an ammunition manufacturing or arsenal-type facility within the Subic Bay or Clark ecozones, but that proposal has quietly been shelved. In the Pax Silica information — which, again, is extremely limited due to the government’s refusal to respect anything that could be remotely described as transparency and respect for the public’s right to know in connection with this project — there is no mention of arms manufacture. Nevertheless, Bingcang decided this was an easy strawman to trot out, and so as “facts” to refute the “myth,” his presentation stressed that the Pax Silica project was “intended for commercial AI (artificial intelligence), semiconductor, and advanced manufacturing industries.”
A little farther along in the presentation, the “advanced manufacturing” part was clarified as “processing critical minerals into higher-value products,” but really, Bingcang’s entire attempt to gaslight the public fell apart as soon as his presentation brought up “commercial AI.”
First, the minerals processing aspect of this is not at all a bad thing, and is something that the country has needed for some time. But for its own sake, and not that of the US tech industry, most of our raw ore exports — of which nickel and copper are the only ones worth discussing — already go to China. Substituting those exports with exports of partially processed metals would be a significant upgrade, and one that would not require finding a new market — China buys the ore; they’ll still buy the processed metal because that saves them a manufacturing step.
The mention of “commercial AI,” along with the fact that Bingcang did not elaborate on it, is telling, because it reveals the true purpose of the Pax Silica initiative. In simple terms, the whole thing — the wild claims about millions of jobs, of new advanced industries, of economic gains falling onto the Philippines’ lap from the US and other investors — is a smokescreen for a desperate US campaign, carried out at the behest of big tech companies, to find places dumb enough to host new AI data centers because it is becoming increasingly difficult to build them in the US.
There will be much more to be said about this aspect of this so-called Pax Silica, and I will certainly say much more about it, but in the meantime, I invite every government cheerleader of this gilded turd of an idea to try to prove me wrong. Provide the original memorandum of understanding the Philippines signed back in April, provide the studies on which your fantastic economic projections are based. Provide the documentation that clarifies that AI data centers are NOT part of the plans. Until then, #NoToPaxSilica.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
