[The Wide Shot] Why Pax Silica concerns people of faith

Unlike Vice President Sara Duterte, who knew nothing about Pax Silica, church groups came prepared when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. mentioned the planned artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Tarlac during his State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines (CMSP), a 71-year-old group of Catholic religious superiors, said that initiatives like Pax Silica “risk depleting our waters, displacing Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral domains, and exploiting the resources of Mother Earth.”

“How can there be peace when creation is wounded, and communities are uprooted?” said the CMSP.

The Church People-Workers Solidarity (CWS), an ecumenical group that includes Catholics and Protestants alike, also sounded the alarm on Pax Silica ahead of Marcos’ SONA.

“While such projects may offer opportunities for technological advancement and economic growth, they must be carefully evaluated in the light of their impact on workers, local communities, indigenous peoples, the environment, and the long-term interests of the Filipino nation,” said the CWS.

The debate over Pax Silica, as church groups make it clear, goes beyond the economy or foreign policy. 

At its core, the issue involves a moral crisis.

Pax Silica strikes at the heart of what it means to be human — a creature relating with God’s Creation — at a time when AI makes us feel like invincible gods recreating the earth.

What is Pax Silica?

Pax Silica is a United States-led coalition that aims to secure global supply chains for artificial intelligence (AI), including semiconductors and minerals, and, consequently, to lessen dependence on China. 

The Philippines — which was an American colony from 1898 to 1946 and remains America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia — was one of the first 23 signatories of the Pax Silica Declaration of December 2025.

One of Pax Silica’s flagship programs is a proposed 1,618-hectare AI hub in the agricultural province of Tarlac.

The arrangement has yet to be finalized, but Marcos said in his SONA that the Tarlac-based Pax Silica Industrial Hub “will be an advanced manufacturing and logistics center in the global AI and technology value chain.”

“It will bring quality jobs to our people, accelerate our industrial competitiveness, and revitalize our economy,” Marcos said, referring to projections that the Pax Silica hub can create up to 190,000 jobs and attract US$40-70 billion in investments.

Critics of Pax Silica, however, have been quick to point out the damage it can inflict on the environment and surrounding communities. 

In the following Rappler articles, we can view the issue from various perspectives:

• In her article ahead of Marcos’ SONA, Rappler environment reporter Iya Gozum cited “the threat of water insecurity as data centers require millions of gallons of water for cooling systems that computer servers need.” 
• Rappler business reporter Lance Yu, in this interview with Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, explained the AI hub’s 3-gigawatt requirement that could put the Luzon electricity grid at serious risk. 
• Economist JC Punongbayan, in his own analysis for Rappler, warned: “The Philippines must not become merely a pawn in a global superpower struggle, and merely supply the land, minerals, power, water, and low-cost labor while Donald Trump’s America keeps the technology, patents, profits, and strategic control.”

Back to Genesis

To make sense of these ecological and economic threats, it helps to also put on a set of moral lenses.

We can draw inspiration from Pope Francis’ Laudato Sì, the first major papal document concerning climate change. 

In this encyclical, the late Argentine pope reflected on the Creation stories in the Book of Genesis, and noted that “human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth itself.”

“We are not God. The earth was here before us, and it has been given to us,” Francis said.

But what about the verse in Genesis stating that God gave the human person “dominion” over the earth (Genesis 1:28)? 

Francis said: “Although it is true that we Christians have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures.”

Noting that we need to put Genesis 1:28 in the proper perspective, he pointed out that in Genesis 2:15, the Lord instructs human beings to “till and keep” the garden of Eden. “‘Tilling’ refers to cultivating, plowing, or working, while ‘keeping’ means caring, protecting, overseeing, and preserving,” he said.

“This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations,” Francis wrote.

“This responsibility for God’s earth means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world,” he added. “Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures.”

‘Humus’

We are but stewards of Creation, and so, from the perspective of faith, not even “190,000 jobs” or “US$40-70 billion in investments” can justify destroying the abundant lands of Tarlac.

Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, in a Facebook post on Friday, July 31, said the “ultimate question” is “not simply whether Pax Silica will make economies stronger or artificial intelligence more powerful.”

“The real question is whether it will help build what Pope Leo calls a civilization of love rather than a culture of power — a future in which technological progress serves human dignity, social fraternity, care for our common home, and peace among nations,” David explained.

Pax Silica concerns people of faith because it involves the Lord’s mandate: “till and keep.”

Speaking out on Pax Silica, as well as other environmental issues, is about knowing our place in God’s Creation.

To be human, after all, is to be humus — Latin for “earth” — as creatures formed by God “out of the clay of the ground” (Genesis 2:7). To be truly human, then, is to possess humilitas — a closeness to humus, to the ground — even as AI turns the self into a false god.

We are caretakers, not owners; we are children of God, not lords of the earth. – Rappler.com

Paterno R. Esmaquel II is a journalist specializing in religion and public life. A former Rappler reporter and news editor, he now writes for international Catholic news outlets, teaches journalism at the University of Santo Tomas, and runs a YouTube channel called The Religion Reporter.