What is the Luzon Economic Corridor?
The Luzon Economic Corridor (LEC) is a US-led trilateral initiative with Japan and the Philippines. It is an infrastructure and economic framework that aims to build and connect key hubs from Subic Bay and Clark in Central Luzon to Metro Manila and Batangas in Southern Tagalog.
The LEC is not merely an infrastructure plan, but a strategic platform designed to realign the Philippines’ resources, critical minerals, and supply chains away from China and directly into the U.S. sphere of interest.
What is the LEC Investment Forum?
The LEC Investment Forum brings together more than 600 foreign investors, industry leaders, and government and international stakeholders to advance investment and infrastructure projects in the Philippines. Among the key initiatives being promoted is Pax Silica, a flagship project under the LEC.
Marcos is paving the way for foreign capital while ancestral lands and farming communities are pushed aside in the name of “development.” While the LEC and Pax Silica are framed as pathways to stronger supply chains, connectivity, and economic growth, Filipino communities bear the social, economic, and environmental costs.
What is the LEC really pushing?
The LEC aims to make the Philippines more attractive to foreign investors, while securing critical minerals for the US as it prepares for war against China.
Infrastructure and natural resources are being turned into “investable” projects, from industrial zones and data centers to ports, railways, energy, and mining. For investors, this means new opportunities for profit. For communities, it can mean land conversion, displacement, state violence, and loss of livelihoods.
Making Philippine resources more accessible to imperialist interests
Under Marcos Jr., policies and laws have expanded incentives and opportunities for foreign investment, land leasing, infrastructure development, and critical-mineral extraction.
These include measures involving tax incentives, long-term land leases, right-of-way acquisition, and streamlined mining permits.
Together, they create a policy environment where foreign capital can gain greater access to Philippine land, resources, infrastructure, and markets.
Development at whose expense?
The proposed Pax Silica hub in Tarlac could affect around 1,620 hectares of agricultural and ancestral lands.
Local groups report that around 20,000 farmers and Indigenous residents face serious risks of land conversion and displacement.
For communities, it is losing more than land – it means losing livelihoods, food security, and ancestral territories.
What is at risk?
- LAND & LIVELIHOODS
- Farmers and Indigenous communities face potential displacement and loss of agricultural and ancestral lands.
- ENVIRONMENT
- Industrial and technology projects require massive amounts of water, energy, and land, raising concerns over biodiversity and agricultural production.
- INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS
- The Ayta indigenous people have raised concerns over the lack of meaningful consultation and their right to self-determination.
- HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
- Communities have also reported experiences of military red-tagging when raising concerns about the project.
The LEC: Part of the U.S. Strategy Against China
The LEC is also part of the broader U.S. strategy to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.
The corridor will facilitate greater US military intervention in the Philippines. The US aims to use the country as a forward base and launching pad for war against its rival China, which makes Filipinos vulnerable to bear the consequences of a war they do not want.
The Filipino people are fighting back!
On August 31, Indigenous peoples, farmers, scientists, environmental advocates, students, faith leaders, and progressive organizations came together to form the Network Opposed to Pax Silica (NO to Pax Silica).
On September 10, five paralegals were arrested during a protest action condemning the LEC Invesment Forum.
Today September 11, a caravan of multisectoral groups and affected Ayta communities held a protest in Tarlac to register its opposition to Pax Silica.
REGISTER FOR KAPIT BISIG!
What the Filipino people need is genuine national industrialization, development that strengthens domestic industries, creates decent jobs, and puts local resources in the service of the Filipino people.
REJECT Pax Silica!
PH NOT FOR SALE!
The upcoming Kapit Bisig conference will bring together people from around the world to call for an end to US-led militarization and plunder of the Philippines.
