The Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP) and Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan (LAB, or League of Scientists for the People), revolutionary organization of scientists and engineers, condemned the Marcos regime’s entry into Pax Silica and its opening of an “economic security zone” for exclusive American use.

“Pax Silica will ensure that US corporations monopolize our natural resources…and cheap labor,” LAB stated. It knows that the factories’ supposed prospective construction under the agreement only multiplies the growing US-owned facilities and factories whose goal is to produce ammunition, weapons, and other materiel.

“The declared goal of the project is to ensure the US supply of critical minerals and other resources by wrestling their processing away from China,” Communist Party of the Philippines chief information officer Marco Valbuena said. “The undeclared goal…is to gain exclusive control in the Philippines.”

The CPP linked Pax Silica to the 1,600-hectare “economic security zone” the US plans to build at Clark Airbase in Pampanga. It stated that this economic zone will become US territory in Luzon for nearly a century. This is because the Marcos regime granted it “diplomatic immunity,” similar to what is granted to embassies of foreign countries in the Philippines. This means that US laws, and not PHilippine laws, will govern the zone. Like its military bases, its personnel will be immune from accountability and punishment under the country’s law, when they commit crimes.

The project is flaunted as an “industrial hub” but totally unrelated to developing the local economy.

“It will only further shackle the country as a supplier of raw materials and cheap labor,” Valbuena said. It will also reopen Pampanga to the destructive presence of American soldiers and personnel, which at one time, fostered widespread prostitution, illegal drugs, and other anti-social activities in the area.

“From the Subic ammunition factory, to the Davao oil depot, with the US military-linked companies Moog Controls Corporation in Benguet, Collins Aerospace in Batangas, and Valar Atomics in Metro Manila, US imperialism is leaving a heavy bootprint on the Philippines as it tramples on our national economy and sovereignty,” LAB stated.

CPP and LAB call on the Filipino people to resolutely fight Pax Silica and reject its planned economic security zone.

“The fight against the so-called US economic security zone is inseparable from the fight against US military intervention,” Valbuena said. “The Filipino people must strengthen their fight against the intensifying US military presence and amplify their demand to dismantle all US military bases and facilities, and expel all American troops and their deployed weapons in the country.”

“STEM professionals and students must reject the US imperialist machinations,” LAB called.