MANILA, Philippines — A prominent group of Filipino scientists warned Sunday that a proposed U.S.-led Pax Silica Hub in Tarlac province presents an incomplete picture of its environmental risks and threatens to displace local farming and indigenous communities.
Agham, an organization of science advocates, pushed back against claims surrounding the 1,600-hectare Pax Silica development in New Clark City, designed to support artificial intelligence infrastructure, data centers, and advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
While government bodies—including the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA)—have defended the initiative, environmental and agricultural groups continue to voice strong opposition.
“The BCDA and the Marcos Jr. administration are clearly desperate to whitewash their environmentally destructive and unsustainable Pax Silica project with the United States,” said Giovanni Tapang, a spokesperson for Agham. “The facts are clear — a project of this scale will invariably impact local farming communities negatively, and will not present any clear, long-term opportunities for the genuine development of our country.”
Citing local media reports, Agham said earlier this month that the BCDA released an initial list of affected residents, showing that communities in barangays O’Donnell, Aranguren, and Santa Lucia in Capas, Tarlac will directly bear the impacts of the project.
Data from the Capas municipal government indicates that more than one-third of the municipality’s land is productive agricultural space.
Agham said local government programs this year have targeted farmers and indigenous groups in the three barangays as well as adjacent communities. “These are the farmers and IP groups that will be displaced,” the group said in a statement. “Displacement can be direct physical displacement or indirect displacement by loss of livelihood, and the immense scale of the project will undoubtedly affect the livelihoods of farmers both inside and outside the project area.”
The organization also challenged assertions that the facility’s AI data centers would run on renewable energy. Because data centers require continuous power 24 hours a day, intermittent sources such as solar and wind power cannot consistently guarantee uninterrupted operations, the group argued.
Agham added that data centers in the United States have increasingly resorted to diesel generators to maintain continuous power, resulting in air pollution. The group also warned that surface water harvesting for the facility would reduce water availability for surrounding agricultural areas and downstream communities.
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