Big Tech is betting billions on AI. In order to fuel the rush for more and more data centers, there is a huge demand for the critical minerals necessary for computer chips. Cobalt, nickel, copper, chromite, gold and other minerals are essential for building the high tech necessary to make AI run. Tech companies, mining companies, and US-aligned governments are trying to secure a supply of these minerals through the recently announced Pax Silica deal.

The Philippines is rich in critical minerals. Government and industry peg untapped mineral wealth at over $1 trillion, yet only ~5% has been explored and mining contracts cover ~3%. This includes:

• 286,000 tons of cobalt (~4 percent of global reserves). 
• 5.29 million tons of nickel. The Philippines is the world’s #2 nickel producer after Indonesia, ahead of Canada, China, Australia, and Brazil. 
• ~4.41 billion tons of copper.
• 66.29 million million tons of chromite.
• 194 million tons of gold.

Who will profit from the extraction of these minerals? Miners make around USD $325/month, or about $2/hour for fulltime work. Pulling from the most recent government statistics (PSA 2023) companies made over PHP 308 billion in 2023, with a recorded total employment at over 38 thousand and almost 17 thousand contractual workers. Assuming that all were given full time of 40 hours a week, they would have earned together a total of more than PHP 13 billion. Meaning, for every peso the worker earned, the company made six! The reality is probably starker as there are widespread issues of workers being underpaid or lacking adequate hours.

Indigenous communities like the Lumad, Igorot, Mangyan, and Aeta live in mountainous areas where these mineral deposits are found. They have long fought to defend their ancestral lands from mining, eco-tourism, energy projects, and other plunder. They have lived on these lands hundreds of years before the US was even founded. 

Communities displaced by mining lose their ancestral lands. They lose their livelihoods and connection to their culture, forced to relocate elsewhere in the country. Amidst ever increasing inflation of food and energy prices, the loss of livelihood is doubly felt. The methods of mining deployed in the Philippines pollute the riverways and further endanger rural communities downstream of the mine. Those communities who resist the development aggression become the targets of state repression. 

The majority of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are deployed in rural and mountainous areas under the US backed counter-insurgency operations. Under the guise of “counter-insurgency”, they essentially serve as a force to repress resistance to foreign plunder and open up resource-rich areas to the entry of foreign capitalists. They have engaged in widespread violations of international humanitarian law such as aerial bombing and strafing, hamletting, killings of civilians, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of peasant and indigenous families. 

Join the campaign against plunder, militarization, and human rights violations in the Philippines! Send us a message on social media or at ichrp.net/contact to learn about how to get involved with ICHRP!

This week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his 5th State of the Nation Address to the Filipino people.

He peddled false promises and “accomplishments” in stark contrast to his reign of fascist state terror and repression of the Filipino people, who are clamoring for change against foreign subservience, plunder, poverty, and corruption.

Marcos Jr. claims “economic growth” while Filipinos are faced with rising prices, stagnant wages, contractual labor, environmental ruin, and forced migration overseas.

Overseas Filipinos feel these consequences directly. Millions left because decent jobs do not exist at home. Their remittances prop up the economy, yet they face exploitation, discrimination, family separation, and dangerous conditions abroad, sometimes in active conflict zones. The government’s reliance on labor export reveals its failure to build an economy that can employ its own people with dignity.

The same agenda driving these crises extends into economic policy. Initiatives like Pax Silica and the Luzon Economic Corridor tighten foreign control over Philippine resources, and drives the Filipino people into the US-led war against China. Minerals, infrastructure, energy, and labor are being restructured to feed global supply chains owned by foreign monopolies, especially for semiconductors and AI technologies tied to military use.

Communities bear the cost through mining, land conversion, displacement, and ecological damage. US influence remains the dominant foreign force over Philippine politics, military, and economy.

Widespread human rights violations and war crimes continue across the Philippine countryside, including indiscriminate bombings and attacks on communities in Negros, Panay, Bicol, Mindoro, and other regions. Counterinsurgency operations have resulted in widespread abuse, and those who organize against injustice face violent reprisal.

The US-backed and funded Philippine military commits war crimes in the countryside like the Negros 19 massacre, which claimed the lives of civilians including journalists, peasant advocates, students, and 2 Filipino Americans, Kai Sorem and Lyle Prijoles.

As Marcos enters his last 2 years in office, the organizers of the Kapit Bisig conference amplify the Filipino people’s demands to hold the Marcos Jr regime accountable for fascist state terror and crimes against the Filipino people, an end to foreign intervention and support for the Marcos regime.

Join the movement to support the Filipino people in their fight for just and lasting peace! On Sept. 25-26, join us in Toronto for the Kapit Bisig: Linking Arms Across the World Against the US War of Suppression on the Filipino People.

Learn more and register: ichrp.net/kapitbisig/

Ka Daning is a farmer leader, organizer, campaigner, and lifelong advocate for genuine land reform and the rights of the working class.

In the 1980’s during the height of the Marcos Sr. fascist dictatorship, he was an organizer and leader of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan (AMB), and was Secretary General of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), and the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC).

He is currently the Chairman of the KMP and ran as a Senator under the Makabayang Koalisyon in the 2025 mid-term elections, carrying the call “Farmers, Plant in the Senate!” His stance is accompanied by strong advocacy for: True land reform and national industrialization.

Come join him at KAPIT BISIG in Toronto, September 25-26!

More info at: ICHRP.NET/KAPITBISIG

March United Towards Broader & Bolder Philippine Solidarity! Strengthen Our Coalition and Organize the Full Range of Support for Filipino People’s Rights!

For more information, visit: ichrp.net/KapitBisig

Since 2013, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has grown into an impactful and strategic global coalition for Philippine solidarity.

It has expanded to over 80 member organizations across the world, and has carried out international projects, advocacy, and support campaigns for the most exploited and oppressed people in the Philippines amid their fights against corruption, land grabbing, economic crisis, and US-led war.

Now, as the Philippines plunges further into crisis and faces the brunt of US-led war, it is CRITICAL and OPPORTUNE that ICHRP strengthen and grow solidarity for the Filipino people, whose struggle for liberation contributes to the worldwide movement for just and lasting peace.

In this crucial time, members of ICHRP and our allies must JOIN TOGETHER to unite on our path forward to develop the broadest possible solidarity for the Filipino people’s struggle.

ICHRP will hold its global General Assembly on Sept 27, 2026 in Toronto, Canada. The GA will immediately follow the 2-day Kapit Bisig Philippine Solidarity Conference from Sept 25-26.

All members and allies of ICHRP are encouraged to attend both the Kapit Bisig conference and the ICHRP 5th General Assembly.

For more information, visit: ichrp.net/KapitBisig

July 29 2026

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) condemns the violent police attack on last Monday’s People’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) protest rally in Manila, and calls for the immediate release and dropping of charges against the 51 arrested, including 13 minors and 3 paralegals.

“ICHRP warns the international community that the Marcos Jr administration is intensifying repression of protests against the enormous corruption scandal which is drowning his administration,” said ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy. “Democracy is under ever-greater threat in the Philippines.

“Yes, the People’s SONA is huge, but it is well organized and peaceful. Yet the police decided to invade the procession and arrest a large number of mainly young people who were not hurting anyone – except the President’s image,” Murphy said.

Just days before the SONA, during the ASEAN Foreign Minister’s meeting on July 22, the police violently dispersed protesters and harassed photojournalists near the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.

Young artist movements were the police targets. Among those arrested is former Panday Sining national chairperson, Hiphop United Against Corruption member, and Fliptop rap artist Vitrum. Other arrested protesters came from the Junkie Rebels Crew, Hiphop United Against Corruption, Skaters United, Vandals United, and Defend the Hood. There were also members of bands Walktrip and MATOKI, and rappers from Kuwagagohan, Raplines and Banghayan.

The police could not justify their aggression, only pointing to breaches of local ordinances against wearing face coverings, and also alleging that six were spray-painting graffiti.

“Despite their claim to use ‘maximum tolerance’, the 22,000 police were actually exercising ‘maximum disruption’ of the 30,000 strong protest. Police did the same last year at big protests on September 21, November 30 and on February 25 this year,” Murphy said. “We agree with BAYAN that this was really overkill by the police.”

Police tried to force a 7am protest by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers off the roadway, and later a large contingent of protesters from Southern Tagalog were blocked from marching along Commonwealth Avenue, causing another struggle to stay on the street.

“Despite these brazen undemocratic tactics by the police, the huge spirited protest sustained its programs and mobilisation right through to the end of the President’s address inside the Congress. ICHRP salutes them all for keeping the flame of democracy and human rights bright in the Philippines,” Murphy concluded.