{"id":6555,"date":"2026-08-10T04:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6555"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:11:28","slug":"pax-silica-is-like-saras-castles-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6555","title":{"rendered":"Pax Silica is like Sara\u2019s castles in the air"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Diego <\/strong>Morra<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Government has made a big splash about Pax Silica, an initiative by strategic US planners to chase China as the world\u2019s foremost processor of rare earths like lithium and a host of other trace metals, and refiner of nickel and other metals needed by weapons producers, aircraft manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry and food production. This is the US running after China, nearly 40 years after it sold its rare earth processing technology to Beijing and even offshoring its production of dual use metals. In its greed for profits and mindless adherence to neoliberal madness, the US forgot that its imperialist dominance could be bludgeoned by China, which it opened up for exploitation and a dumping ground for its overproduction.<\/p>\n

Malacanang and the champions of foreign capital in the bureaucracy like Finance Secretary Frederick Go, Executive Secretary Ralph Recto and the department notorious for mistaken economic planning along with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) have been trumpeting Pax Silica as the savior of the Philippine economy, generating between $40 billion and $90 billion in foreign and employing a total of 190,000 Filipinos. Pax Silica was never intended to benefit the Philippines since it was conceived by the US Department of State in December 2025 as international economic security framework that would ensure a viable supply chain for advanced technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor production.<\/p>\n

Bureaucrats are talking as if two birds in the bush are better than a bird in hand, calculating profits and technological advances while losing sight of the fact that the Philippines has been in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for decades, with Intel leaving Cavite for Vietnam in 2007 after it failed to secure an extension of its tax perks and tariff concessions during the Arroyo administration. From 1997 to 2009, Intel operated in Cavite without really developing domestic capabilities for advanced chip manufacturing in the Philippines, University of the Philippines (UP) physicist and Agham spokesperson explained.<\/p>\n

The Intel episode proved that the claim of Pax Silica will develop a scientific and technical cadre to establish a national advanced tech hub is as illusory as Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio claim that she would magically develop the infrastructure and brain trust to push the country into the ranks of advanced chip manufacturers like Taiwan, or ASML, the Dutch monopoly on extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) necessary for fabricating advanced chips. Talk of the country being an AI hub or workhorse for the production of rare earth magnets and components for US missiles, aircraft and a paradise for 24\/7 data centers has gotten the better of executives like Joseph Bingcang, whose BCDA is under fire from Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro for being a cheapskate by remitting only P45-million to the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 26 years.<\/p>\n

Pax Silica is supposedly backed by 25 countries, all of them subordinate to the US and the malignant narcissist Donald Trumpy and beneficiaries of the metal ores coming from the Philippines, including those from three newly-discovered deposits. The deal signed by the Philippines to become the Pax Silica hub was consummated behind the backs of the people of Central Luzon, where the 1,620-hectare hub would be located (in Capas, Tarlac, where citizens are furious) and impact on the indigenous Aeta, whose ancestral land in Subic, Zambales was converted into a temporary but actually permanent garbage dump, sickening\u00a0 children and adults alike. The republic has shown absolutely no empathy for the suffering minority groups and obdurate in equal measure to the economic needs of underpaid workers and low-income farmers to be affected by the Pax Silica hub.<\/p>\n

Pax Silica is really like Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio\u2019s castles in the air. As they say, it is all cattle and no hat. Remember how Sara\u2019s copious drumbeaters have been yammering about Sara reducing the prices of prime commodities once Ferdinand Marcos Jr. resigns or is ousted by her amorphous zealot army? Or oil and gas would come crashing down to earth once she is enthroned? Or that money would flood the country once the dawn of Sara\u2019s rule breaks? Liarrhea is Sara\u2019s second skin, and she competes competently with Donald Trump on that score. She talked of the Marcos Jr. government grabbing credit for the housing project in Davao City that she insisted she started.<\/p>\n

Blame her for not reading as the project, which consists of seven residential buildings, was conceived in 2023 and built immediately. Or Davao City being an infra budget it sorely needed, when P2.6-billion was appropriated for them in the past three years while the P51-billion the city secured in the last three years apparently missing, like the many people slaughtered by the Davao Death Squad (DDS.)\u00a0 Thus far, Sara remains clueless about f*ck silica and could not comment about it, acting as if she were a stranger in her strange government. This ignorance, if it were true, disqualifies from taking a role in the continuing movie called the Philippine government. She hasn\u2019t passed the screen test. She should have stuck with specializing in respiratory therapy.<\/p>\n

While the purported hundreds of thousands of jobs that Pax Silica would create were a tragic joke, Ibon Foundation executive director Sonny Africa said \u201cthousands of temporary to indirect jobs \u2014 construction needs or contractual workers \u2014provide no real job security nor space for union organizing. Moreover, the promised technology transfers and upskilling are dependent on the foreign company\u2019s needs for profit maximization, not rooted in an interest in developing the Filipino economy.\u201d This, despite the fact, which government trumpets, that the country has 171,773 semiconductor and electronics engineers and technicians, 500 firms operating and 130,000 new engineers joining the industry by 2029, thus pushing the manpower pool to 301,773. The problem with this hype is that Pax Silica will be concerned merely with assembly of chips and sensitive components for the Pentagon. Another problem is that the US had lost the fight for producing advance refining and processing systems, which China now controls to the tune of 80%. How can the ham-fisted US even accelerate its momentum in building a competent supply chain? #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Diego Morra   Government has made a big splash about Pax Silica, an initiative by strategic US planners to chase China as the world\u2019s foremost processor of rare earths like lithium and a host of other trace metals, and refiner of nickel and other metals needed by weapons producers, aircraft manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editoryal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t