By Julliane Nicole Labinghisa and Sean Clifford M. Malinao
The global race to fuel the world's next generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes shape far from data centers. Following the recent collaboration between the United States (U.S.) and the Philippines (PH) to secure global chains for AI and semiconductors, what emerged alongside promises of innovation was a chorus of alarm over familiar cycles of dispossession, environmental exploitation, and militarized repression suffered by the people on the ground.
Last December 2025, the U.S. Department of State endorsed Pax Silica under the urgency to ‘secure supply chains, trusted technology, and resilient infrastructure’ with eight original participating countries including Japan, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Under the initiative, partner countries are expected to secure the global technology supply chain and pursue projects and joint ventures, seeking to reduce coercive dependencies and establish a durable economic order in present times.
Expanding beyond its original participating countries, Pax Silica welcomed the Philippines, a crucial U.S. ally, along with the declaration of its shared plan to establish a 4,000-acre industrial hub in the Luzon Economic Corridor last April 16.
Marketed as a catalyst for economic security and investment, the project signals a deeper strategic realignment. By embedding the Philippines further into the U.S.-led semiconductor and electronics supply chain, it positions the country as both a manufacturing base for allied industries and a critical link in an increasingly contested geopolitical landscape.
Since its membership, several coalitions condemned the move made by the Marcos Jr. administration, deeming it as an undertaking for war production while also shifting the social and environmental costs to the Filipino people.
‘Sheeps’ in camouflage-clothing
For the peasant sector, the future envisioned within Northern Central Luzon is far less optimistic. While policymakers behold opportunities, communities see through the polished surface, scrutinizing the dangers of shrinking livelihoods and an expanding military footprint encroaching on the very lands they depend on.
Beyond the language of investment and innovation, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) perceives Pax Silica as an ambitious project that further binds the Philippines to foreign-controlled supply chains for industries now at the center of a growing geopolitical contest among major world powers.
“This is war production disguised as ‘so-called development.’ The government is opening our mountains and ancestral lands to more destructive mining and industries that serve foreigners rather than the Filipino people,” the group said in a statement released on Facebook.
The group's concerns intensified following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s recent meeting with U.S. Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, where discussions reportedly included plans for an ‘AI-native industrial hub’ in New Clark City.
For them, the talks reflect a broader effort to align Philippine economic planning with American strategic and technological priorities.
“The U.S. wanted Philippine territory exempted from Philippine laws reveals the colonial and interventionist character of this initiative… This is a direct affront to Philippine sovereignty and proof that the U.S. still sees the country as a strategic outpost for its military and economic interests,” KMP Secretary General Ronnie Manalo said in the statement.
Manalo’s remarks echo the main criticism surrounding Pax Silica, which cites the initiative less as an industrial policy for the Philippines but more of a deceptive geopolitical strategy embedded within the United States’ competition with China.
“Pax Silica is not designed to industrialize the Philippines for the benefit of Filipinos. It is meant to secure supply chains for the U.S. military-industrial complex and support America’s geopolitical confrontation with China,” he argued.
In late 2025, the Philippines joined other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in adopting the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan, a long-term framework extending until 2030 that explicitly seeks to transform Southeast Asia into a competitive hub for critical minerals production and processing.
For many, the narrative of shared prosperity begins to fracture upon closer scrutiny. While marketed as an opportunity to strengthen the country’s position within the semiconductor industry, others argue that it ultimately advances as a reinforcement of U.S. supply chain resilience and military readiness.
Until all deals do us part
Beyond the geopolitical contest, Pax Silica is expected to increase militarization in rural areas, intensifying foreign control over the country’s local territory.
Pax Silica is just one of the many U.S.-PH partnerships that reflect their close relationship as allies — both in terms of economy and strategic security alliances. The race for semiconductors may be new, but the story behind it unfolds a decades-old friendship.
These include the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a 10-year defense pact that authorized the presence of U.S. military troops in mutually agreed locations scattered over the country such as in Pampanga, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro.
Initially, there were five original EDCA sites present in the Philippines, with four additional bases added in 2023.
EDCA was established following the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty signed by the Philippines and the U.S., which was further enhanced by the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement.
Moreover, the U.S.-PH bilateral agreement on the Balikatan Exercise which is designed to strengthen security and local military capacity has faced serious criticism concerning sovereignty, geopolitical tensions, as well as its impact on local communities.
The 41st iteration of the Balikatan Exercise was held last April, which was considered to be the biggest one yet with 17,000 troops from seven countries participating in the drills.
With more nations joining Balikatan, including Japan and its Type-88 surface-to-ship missiles, the military exercises took on greater geopolitical weight heavily criticized by China, seeing it as a remilitarization of Japan and a flex of power amid tensions over the West Philippine Sea.
In an interview with FEU Advocate, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) Secretary General Mong Palatino underlined the persisting condition of the Philippines as a “neocolony” of the U.S. despite its declared sovereignty.
“We remained a neocolony of the U.S. after 1946 when we supposedly became an independent republic… Even after 1991, when we expelled U.S. bases, the U.S. retained its influence and dominance on our political, economic, and military affairs,” he emphasized.
Additionally, Palatino criticized President Marcos Jr. for approving the installation of four additional EDCA sites and the expansion of U.S. military operations and facilities in the country.
“Marcos treasonously equates the promotion of US geopolitical agenda with our national interest,” he claimed.
According to the BAYAN secretary general, the increased presence of foreign military bases in the country increases the risks of military escalation and confrontation, which endangers not only the Philippines’ sovereignty but also its local communities.
“It further integrates our country into the military network of the U.S., which endangers our communities since they can be targeted by the enemies of the U.S… Since its launch in 2024, the Luzon Economic Corridor only led to greater military buildup,” Palatino noted.
Home is where the mine is
With vast deposits of strategic resources such as untapped mineral reserves, the country has increasingly attracted attention from industries and nations seeking materials needed for artificial intelligence systems, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy technologies, and advanced defense equipment.
Beyond questions of economic dependency, KMP further raised concerns on the possible expansion of mining activities in provinces such as Zambales, Palawan, and Nueva Vizcaya — areas long associated with disputes over resource extraction, environmental degradation, and community displacement.
Against this backdrop, the group argued that the agreements risk prioritizing foreign demands over the country's own development goals.
“Under these agreements, the Marcos government is offering up our land, labor, and mineral wealth to feed U.S. war production and corporate interests… Instead of building genuine Filipino industries, the country will once again be reduced to a source of raw materials and cheap labor,” Manalo stated.
Government officials have promoted the Luzon Economic Corridor as a driver of industrial growth and economic opportunity, yet similar policies have historically done little to address issues of land ownership, domestic manufacturing, or the country's dependence on imported technologies and foreign industries.
While such initiatives have attracted foreign investment and further integrated the Philippines into global markets, the peasant group also highlights a long-standing debate over the country's regressive development path.
“Decades of U.S.-dictated economic policies have prevented genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization. These new agreements will only deepen the country’s underdevelopment,” Manalo stressed.
As industrialization gains renewed momentum through initiatives tied to semiconductor manufacturing and foreign investment, questions surrounding development extend beyond economic projections to the communities expected to accommodate these projects.
For incoming Far Eastern University third-year political science student Precious Julianne Ng, discussions on industrial expansion should account not only for investment projects but also for the unequal burden carried by sectors that have historically remained at the margins of development planning.
“The government has the primary responsibility of ensuring that industrialization does not come at the expense of environmental justice... The government must also safeguard vulnerable sectors, especially our [Indigenous Peoples] and rural communities who always suffer from industrial initiatives,” she stated in a separate interview.
Development projects that alter these landscapes therefore extend beyond questions of relocation, carrying implications for cultural continuity, traditional knowledge, and self-determination protected under the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act.
For many Indigenous communities, the cost of development cannot be measured in hectares lost or households relocated alone.
It is not only the land that is stripped away to make way for development projects such as Pax Silica; rather, it involves forcing people out of their homes, further threatening cultural survival — making this not only a relocation issue but a humanitarian concern.
Historically, the indigenous community has always been at a disadvantage, subjected to a long-standing fight to protect the cultural heritage over their lands, products, and heritage amid the growing push of innovation.
This is where the shift can be seen. When the struggle of keeping their land involves big names and large corporations, the unequal fight over its ownership begins.
As such, Ng contended that environmental justice cannot be treated as a secondary concern behind economic growth. Instead, she considers ecological protection and human welfare as inseparable, arguing that communities closest to industrial projects are often the first to experience polluted waterways, degraded ecosystems, and the erosion of traditional livelihoods.
“Economic growth should never come at the cost of environmental degradation or the displacement of local communities. Corporations must comply with environmental regulations by adopting sustainable and ethical business practices by investing in cleaner technologies and ecological restoration rather than shifting these costs to the low communities,” she added.
Moreover, Ng highlighted that developments measured through rising GDP often fail to capture the unequal distribution of both benefits and sacrifices. Though large-scale projects may generate impressive statistics at the national level, it simultaneously deepens precarity in communities that lose their land, income, or access to natural resources.
“Development should not be measured only by how buildings are constructed, how much the economy grows, or how much foreign investment the country has... Progress loses its meaning if it leaves behind farmers and fishermen who lose their only source of income, indigenous people who are removed from their lands,” she argued.
For Ng, a more equitable approach begins by recognizing affected communities not as obstacles to development but as stakeholders whose rights, consent, and welfare should shape the direction of national progress.
If development is pursued primarily to satisfy the demands of global supply chains or attract foreign investment, the communities expected to accommodate these projects risk becoming invisible participants in a false model of growth that values land as an economic asset more than as a source of life and identity.
This raises broader questions about whose interests the initiative is designed to serve.
Cheap happens
While the Philippines deepen its role in the global semiconductor supply chain, concerns remain that the Pax Silica initiative may once again become another source of cheap labor while higher-value innovation and profits remain elsewhere.
The introduction of new industries may be beneficial to generate employment providing the locals with more opportunities for work, it remains vital to be critical in understanding and seeing the kind of development they truly institutionalize and serve for.
“Having this AI Hub and U.S. facility means that we provide our resources at lower costs and supply our labor, rather than using these resources to develop and innovate something that is 100-percent Filipino-owned and can benefit our economy in the long run,” Ng stated.
This mirrors broader criticisms of global supply chains, where developing countries often provide labor-intensive manufacturing while wealthier economies retain control over technology, innovation, and the largest share of economic returns.
Despite decades of participation in the industry, the Philippines remains trapped in the lower tiers of semiconductor production, where Filipino workers are often valued for their labor but excluded from the higher-paying stages of design and innovation.
While foreign partnerships are often presented as pathways to modernization, Ng calls to the Filipino people that development should not come at the expense of the country's ability to chart its own technological future.
“We should not allow our land and resources to [only] become tools for advancing the interests of more powerful countries while the Philippines itself [is] still left behind,” she underscored.
Palatino shared a similar sentiment, highlighting that national resources should serve the local community and not the other way around.
“Our resources should be developed to meet our actual basic needs and based on a blueprint that will lead to the building of local industries, decent jobs, and livelihoods,” he emphasized.
Therefore, the question is not whether industrialization should proceed, but whether it equips the Filipino workforce to become innovators rather than perpetual suppliers of labor.
“We should ask who truly benefits from these projects. Will the country remain primarily a source of labor and resources, or will these investments genuinely strengthen Filipino industries?” Ng underlined.
It is undeniable that foreign networks and close relationships remain vital in the progress of the nation as they boost local efforts and expand influence. However, the question of who this development is for should always be considered.
The priority of these projects should be to cater local communities, rather than burdening them with intensified struggles.
“Instead of Pax Silica and Luzon Economic Corridor, we need to implement genuine land reform and pursue national industrialization that caters to our needs and productive potential,” Palatino emphasized.
As the Philippines races to become a key player in the global semiconductor industry, the focus shifts to whether the country will continue trading its land, labor, and sovereignty for another nation's geopolitical ambitions. Until then, every infrastructure project and foreign-backed investment invites the same dilemma on whose future is being built and who is paying the price.