Hundreds of concerned groups in more than 30 countries joined the call of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) for the rejection of the US Pax Silica Initiative and shutting down of the 1,620-hectare economic security zone (ESZ) that the US plans to build in New Clark City in Tarlac, Philippines. In the country itself, 88 organizations and nearly 500 individuals signed a statement condemning the Marcos’ regime’s surrender of national sovereignty under the project.

On June 16, 2026, Ang Bayan Ngayon reported that ILPS’s widely supported manifesto titled “SHUT THE PAX DOWN! A Global Call to Reject Pax Silica’s Economic Security Zone in the Philippines,” maintained that Pax Silica is an “aggressive maneuver by the US to secure its tech-military supremacy against global competitors, particularly China.” It also described Pax Silica as a “new wave of imperialist domination and plunder” aimed at consolidating US control over strategic territories and resources in the Indo-Pacific at the expense of the welfare of the Filipino people.

The environmental toll of this initiative is staggering. The required data centers consume massive amounts of clean water, directly threatening local supplies needed for agriculture and household consumption. A single facility can also consume up to 500 megawatts (MW) of power---enough electricity to power roughly 80,000 homes.

The Pax Silica in extracting the Philippines’ raw materials as inputs for US supply chain in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors will result in environmental destruction, loss of livelihoods, and brutal state repression against resisting local communities, including national minorities.

The manifesto added, “Equally disturbing are the links between Pax Silica and corporations and contractors tied to US and Israeli military technologies, surveillance systems, autonomous warfare, and the global arms industry, which reveal the deeply militarized character of this project.”

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) asserts that Marcos regime’s complicity in Washington’s scheme to fully integrate the Philippines into the US war economy and first island chain containment strategy against China is tantamount to treason. Its noisy posturing in the West PH Sea serves to obscure the more fundamental issue of its puppetry to US imperialism and its dire impact on the country’s sovereignty and future.