No to Pax Silica in our name: UK organisations stand with the Filipino people

We, the undersigned organisations, are deeply concerned by the UK’s membership of Pax Silica, the US-led alliance on artificial intelligence, semiconductors and critical minerals, and by the harm its flagship project threatens to communities in the Philippines.

The UK was among the founding signatories of Pax Silica in December 2025, and analysts place it within the alliance’s inner circle of most closely coordinating members. Yet the government has not told Parliament what membership commits the UK to. In September 2026, the UK also made up to £5 billion in UK Export Finance available for Philippine government infrastructure in sectors that include digital infrastructure, advanced technology, energy and water, the very sectors on which the Pax Silica hub depends.

In the Philippines, Pax Silica is reliant on a 1,620-hectare Economic Security Zone at New Clark City, Tarlac, where foreign investors are to be offered 99-year land leases and freeport-style privileges. Environmental organisations warn that as many as 20,000 residents could be displaced, and scientists have challenged official claims that the hub can run on renewable energy without straining the region’s water supply. The earlier development of New Clark City displaced Aeta Indigenous and farming communities and diverted local rivers, and we have no reason to expect a different outcome on a larger scale.

We are further concerned that the sectors Pax Silica covers are ones that US strategy itself treats as having direct military application, in a country where land defenders, environmental advocates and trade unionists continue to face red-tagging, harassment and violence.

We stand in solidarity with the communities, farmers, workers and scientists in the Philippines who are raising these concerns, and we call on the UK government to:

1. Withdraw from Pax Silica.

2. Until it does so, make no further commitments without full parliamentary scrutiny, and publish the terms of the UK's membership and any obligations it entails.

3. Confirm whether any UK Export Finance support could go to projects linked to Pax Silica or the New Clark City Economic Security Zone, and rule out support for any project that has not secured the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous peoples and the agreement of affected farming and fishing communities.

4. Apply robust, public human rights and environmental due diligence to all UK Export Finance support in the Philippines, including independent assessments of water, energy and land impacts.

5. Rule out any UK support, finance or technology transfer under Pax Silica that could contribute to military use or to the repression of communities in the Philippines.