Pax Silica

On Aug. 14, the Senate committees on the environment and natural resources and finance conducted a five-hour hearing on the hottest and most controversial economic and investment idea of the day – Pax Silica.

Nearly all the senators at the hearing seemed to favor Pax Silica. Before the day was over, after offering the usual platitudes on the positives of Pax Silica, the senators all sounded against it. Because of concerns about severe shortages of electricity and water, plus the harm microchip manufacturing and computer data centers could do to the environment.

The main problem is a lack of information and transparency. Hardly anybody, including the most ardent Pax Silica proponents, knows exactly what Pax Silica is being exported to the Philippines by America.

Pax is Latin for peace. Silica is silicon dioxide, sand if you go to beaches. Silicon comes from silica. Silicon is a pure chemical element, a conductor used in computer chips. As a semiconductor, silicon acts as an electrical conductor and an insulator, enabling microprocessors or chips to control, switch and amplify electrical signals to process data.

Chips are the brains of computers. They contain the commands that run computers.

It seems if you make silicon, you can make chips. If you make chips, you can build computers. If you build computers, you can make them work like humans. Or robots with brains. Hence, the phrase artificial intelligence – the intelligence of machines or robots.

If you bring such systems on a large scale to the Philippines and in more than 23 other countries in the Pax Silica alliance, you can create jobs and therefore industrial peace. And if you can control robots with brains, you can dominate the world and deter aggressors.

Hence, the pax in Pax Silica, just like the Pax Romana of the Romans, the 200-year golden age of stability, order and economic growth, between 27 BCE (Before the Current Era or before Christ) and 180 CE (Current Era or after Christ).

To me, Pax Silica, Philippine version, is nothing more than an attempt of the United States (leader of Pax Silica) to dominate the production or processing of minerals needed for semiconductors, computers and AI machines, and control as well the benefits those three – semiconductors, computers and AI machines – deliver.

Pax Silica’s motive power is China. The US fears that China is catching up with the US in computing power and AI and offering services at a fraction of the prices of US-made AI.

What to do then? Use the first mover advantage. Go to Asia, the world’s most populated and most dynamic region, one with plenty of manpower and natural resources especially minerals, to backstop AI development.

The Philippines’ role in Pax Silica is not exactly about semiconductor manufacturing (the value added of ICs we export is less than 15 percent), nor employment of skilled workers in technology (Philippine STEM education is bad), nor helping to harness the benefits of AI (humans, the 12 million we export to the world, beat AI anytime).

Because of corruption and colossal red tape in the Philippines, I doubt that any foreign investor can put up a serious IC plant or AI data center here – not in five years, or even 10 years. Did you know how long or how difficult it is to put up a single windmill in the Philippines? Ten years and 100 signatures.

Therefore, our role in PS (not BS) is more the value of the Philippines’ mineral resources like copper, nickel and aluminum. Copper is used to transmit electricity – transmission, wiring and cooling. AI is electricity intensive. Nickel is used in making semiconductors or ICs because of its high temperature strength and corrosion resistance. Germanium – used in the production of semiconductors, solar cells and micro and nanoelectronics – comes from zinc and coal. Gold is used in bonding wires, connectors and chip packaging.

The Philippines is supposed to have $840 billion worth of untapped minerals. Or P51 trillion – the equivalent of having a flood control scam good for 51 years – at the rate of P1 trillion being stolen every year (by our politicians) in the guise of flood control.

The gold, copper, nickel and chromite reserves of the Philippines were valued at P588 billion in 2025 alone, up 17.6 percent from P500 billion in 2024.

Here is Trade and Industry Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo’s presentation before the Senate last Aug. 14: The Pax Silica partnership of 24 countries/economies has non-binding principles:

• Strengthen economic security through trusted partnerships and resilient supply chains.

• Advance the development and adoption of trustworthy AI.

• Cooperate across the AI ecosystem, from minerals and energy to chips and software.

• Mobilize private sector investment and innovation.

• Build trusted technology networks while reducing strategic dependencies.

• Coordinate against unfair trade practices and protect critical technologies.

• Transition global economic order from a foundation of oil and steel to one based on computers and minerals.

• Focus on securing and coordinating supply chains (e.g. investment actions) for advanced technologies essential to the artificial intelligence (AI) era.

Current PS partners include: United States, Australia, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Netherlands, Qatar, UAE, India, Sweden, Finland, Philippines, Norway, European Union, Germany, Greece, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Kazakhstan and Panama.

Pax Silica major activities

1. Critical minerals: Securing the extraction and refining of materials like rare earths, lithium, gallium and germanium; nickel, copper, cobalt.

2. Semiconductors: Coordinating chip design, fabrication (especially advanced memory chips) and specialized packaging.

3. AI infrastructure: Building data centers, fiber-optic cables and foundational AI models.

4. Energy and logistics: Integrating industrial-scale energy for data centers and establishing secure transportation corridors.

Why did Phl become a partner?

It is to transform itself from a predominantly labor- and services-driven economy into a technology-enabled industrial economy; reposition the country’s semiconductor and electronics industry within the global value chain for artificial intelligence and leverage its three unique attributes – minerals, demographics and strategic location.

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