Philippine Parliamentarians, Labor Leaders Raise Alarm Bells On U.S.-Led Pax Silica Trade Deal

TORONTO, CA | 25 September - Today leaders from the Philippines held a press conference in Toronto ahead of the Kapit Bisig conference and the 5th global assembly of the International Coalition of Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) to brief the public on the urgent human rights and intensifying of the Filipino people and their resources.

"Pax Silica is not just a mere trade agreement, but an agreement that has economic, political, and security implications for the Philippines," shared Liza Maza. "The United States has made rare earth minerals a national concern because they see the future as a future of microchips to produce high technology warfare."

Liza Maza, two-time Philippine parliamentarian with the Makabayan block, founder of the International Women's Alliance and chair emerita of Gabriela, speaks on the harms of Pax Silica and the urgent need for international solidarity.

Speakers included:

• Reverand Patricia Lissen of ICHRP Canada
• Liza Maza, president of the progressive Philippine political party Makabayan,
• Danilo "Ka Daning" Ramos, chairperson of the largest alliance of peasants and farmworkers in the Philippines - Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).

All three speakers raised alarm bells regarding Canadian mining in the Philippines, and unequal trade deals led by the United States, namely the multilateral "Pax Silica" critical mineral agreement (of which Canada is currently listed as an "observer"). Pax Silica is described by the Trump administration's State Department as their flagship policy to develop Artificial Intelligence and support the Silicon Valley tech supply chain.

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Maza particularly expressed how these AI-supply chain projects have dire impacts on communities in the Philippines. "Already, displacements are happening. They were given notices to vacate the areas." Maza added that, "the people are really afraid that basic needs like electricity and water will become more expensive when Pax Silica comes, not to mention the environmental impacts."

"I'd like the stress the point that from our position in the Philippines, among the indigenous sector, land should be distributed for the tillers and not for Pax Silica," shared Danilo Ramos of KMP. "Foreign direct investment is not the way for our development, only genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization will lead to development."

These concerns were closely linked with increasing militarization of the Philippine countryside by the U.S.-funded Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). As world leaders like Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump deepen military and economic ties with the Philippine government through deals like Pax Silica, the Canadian Status of Visiting Forces Agreement, and the upcoming Canada-Philippines Free Trade Agreement, it is urgent that communities and human rights activists around the world expose the impact on the Philippines, and migrant communities in countries like the U.S. and Canada.

"We cannot listen, express sympathy, and then leave [our Philippine partners] to carry the burden alone," shared Rev. Patricia Lissen. "Our responsibility in Canada is to listen, and then to act. Canada should pause further military agreements."

On September 25-26, hundreds of advocates and organizations from around the world will convene in Toronto to discuss the dire political and economic crisis in the Philippines and how allies can come together in solidarity. Attendees will include churches, unions, lawyers, solidarity groups, and a number of prominent activists traveling from the Philippines.

Canada is home to nearly one million Filipinos, a community that has been forced to migrate overseas because of US-led war, plunder, corruption, and blatant state fascism in the Philippines and are still directly impacted by the conditions in their homeland. The Kapit Bisig conference will also serve as an opportunity to connect the urgent local issues and organizing efforts of the Filipino diaspora to the global solidarity movement for the Philippines.

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