24/07/2026
No Land, No Food: Kontra Gutom Foundation’s Stand Against Pax Silica
Launched in December 2025, Pax Silica is a U.S.-led coalition aimed at securing supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence outside of China’s influence. The Philippines joined the initiative in April 2026, committing to establish a 1,619-hectare Economic Security Zone in New Clark City. While the project promises jobs and foreign investment, it also risks placing the country’s land, natural resources, and food security in service of foreign-led supply chains.
The proposed economic zone is located in Central Luzon, one of the Philippines’ major food-producing regions. Converting productive agricultural land into industrial spaces threatens farmers’ livelihoods and weakens the country’s ability to produce food. At the same time, increased mining and semiconductor production place greater pressure on land, water, and energy resources that communities and agriculture depend on, putting Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger at risk.
As an organization committed to addressing hunger and protecting vulnerable communities, the Kontra Gutom Foundation opposes the conversion of agricultural lands and the expansion of extractive industries under Pax Silica. No amount of foreign investment justifies compromising the nation’s capacity to feed its own people or placing Philippine land and resources at the service of external geopolitical and economic interests.
We call on the government to reject projects that threaten food-producing lands, protect farmers and indigenous communities, and pursue development that strengthens food security rather than undermines it.
Development that undermines a nation’s ability to feed itself is not development at all.
