Pax Silica is not looking for a ‘partner’ to share profits with. It is looking for a country dumb enough and blind enough not to see the pitfalls.
Protesters stage a rally along Kalaw Avenue in Manila on 4 July 2026, marking the 80th Philippine-U.S. Friendship Day by opposing what they describe as expanded U.S. military presence and intervention, as well as the proposed Pax Silica Initiative.
PHOTOGRAPH courtesy of Toto Lozano for DAILY TRIBUNE
Let me play devil’s advocate as a former consultant to bilateral government projects funded by USAID and the World Bank.
Pax Silica looks fine at first glance, but it is fraught with dangers the Philippines may not be aware of and has to seriously consider. This over-romanticized vision, meant to seduce us with dreamy windfall profits, has hidden traps. Pax Silica, of course, has ulterior motives and may be indifferent to its ill effects on Philippine society.
Trap No. 1: Agricultural productivity
Pax Silica’s AI data centers require massive allocations of land in an already crowded place. They will easily displace our agricultural economy on a massive scale, especially the marginal farmers, and most especially the sources of water and electricity, compromising their basic survival.
AI data centers also require massive use of energy and electricity, and can easily suck up what is allocated to consumers who are already besieged by brownouts, especially in the Visayan grid.
It may even cause an agricultural crisis for a nation with a 70-percent agricultural economy. At worst, with the Super El Niño hanging over us like a Sword of Damocles, we are headed for a storm of monstrous proportions — of hunger and social unrest. Marginal and ethnic communities will be the most affected on an existential level.
Pax Silica will offer high-end salaries to IT employees to the detriment of the marginalized who are heavily dependent on a subsistence economy. Pax Silica may seduce its target beneficiaries to fight for their employment in spite of its bad effects on the marginals and the poor sector.
Trap No. 2: Land use crisis
The area required by Pax Silica is vast. In the long term, its land requirements alone may displace a large proportion of marginals, who are already hemmed in on all sides by expanding industries and rapid population growth. Our land situation is crowded. Pax Silica may turn out to be “Guerre Silica” (War Silica).
Let us not get carried away by a dream that may turn into a nightmare, an over-romanticized seduction into a trap that may destroy our marginal communities and our agricultural economy.
Ethnic groups recently aired their greatest fear, warning of the threat to their survival on top of the destruction of our agricultural economy — and the very survival of our agricultural nation.
Pax Silica is not looking for a “partner” to share profits with. It is looking for a country dumb enough and blind enough not to see the pitfalls mentioned above.
Pax Silica still has vast options. The Philippines is not the only nation they are eyeing. Let us see how they fare in other countries in Asia and Latin America. Let them be the guinea pigs. For now, let us be sensitive to the invisible traps. Let us think forward. Let us think Filipino.
Environmental Impact Assessment
Pax Silica needs to fulfill some legal requirements, such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), in order to get a license to legally operate in the country. This is to ensure that the environment is not harmed, which would have a direct bearing on our national agricultural productivity and economy.
It would take a minimum of about a year to come up with the bible-thick EIA, which describes in scientific detail the future operations of the project in question. Every stone will be unturned.
Because of the ongoing “AI explosion” and the resultant rivalry among AI users, the production time frame is reduced from weeks to hours in order to successfully compete against rivals.
Bribes to fast-track EIA approval have happened in the past. The EIA cannot be fast-tracked; otherwise, it will be prone to errors which will delay approval all the more.
The EIA process requires the participation of affected communities to avoid bribes for fast-tracking. It is suggested that the communities, as stakeholders, hire legal and scientific consultants to protect their interests.
The AI Bubble
Finally, many AI experts are predicting an “AI bubble” that may be caused by the eager beavers blinded by the gold. Because the AI frenzy is moving forward at an extremely rapid pace, caution has been thrown to the wind. The frenzy must be balanced by caution.
An AI bubble will make all the massive investments in AI data centers an irrecoverable failure. At the present lightning pace of growth, the so-called “AI bubble,” if real, can easily be more massive, as experts warn that the more delayed the bubble is, the bigger it will be, if indeed it is headed that way.
