DMCI Mining is only one of the Philippine conglomerates that are bullish about mining in Palawan, despite the negative perceptions of some stakeholders in the Province about the industry. It plans to begin operations at the Long Point nickel mine in Palawan within 2025, through Berong Nickel Corp, subject to the release of permits. Once Long Point starts operations, DMCI Mining’s full annual operating capacity will increase to three million wet metric tons. With Long Point, DMCI Mining will eventually be operating three mines in the Province. In addition to the DMCI Mining group, others operating in Palawan are Rio Tuba Mining Corp., Nickel Asia Corp., Ipilan Nickel Corp., Global Ferronickel Holdings, Inc., Oriental Peninsula Resources Group, Inc, and others.

There is, however, a fly in the ointment. It is well known that the tourism or hospitality sector can be a major source of employment and foreign exchange earnings for the Philippines once the appropriate infrastructures are built. As already attained by neighboring countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, annual flows of 20 million foreign visitors, in addition to the domestic travelers estimated to be at the level of 60 million or more, can enable the tourism industry to contribute significantly to gross domestic product (GDP) growth and reduction of mass poverty which is prevalent in Palawan, especially among the indigenous people communities. I can sympathize with those who are in favor of disallowing mining operations in Palawan, mining being usually harmful to the physical environment whose natural beauty (especially the beaches) is the major attraction of this Archipelagic province (there are 1,780 islands and islets within the province).

There can, however, be a compromise. The most attractive tourism sites in the province are concentrated in the northern portion of the island such as El Nido, which has Bacuit Bay Islands, Miniloc, Matinloc, Shimizu, Seven Commandos, and Snake Island. Then there are the islands belonging to Coron of the Busuanga Island Group, which is made up of Kayangan Lake, Twin Lagoon, Barracuda Lake, and the Siete Pecados Park, among others. In Central Palawan, there is San Vicente with Long Beach, consisting of 14 km of continuous white sand, the longest in the Philippines. Roxas boasts of Johnson Island and German Island and the Tumarbong Falls.

In contrast, most of the mineral deposits are in Southern Palawan such as Brooke’s Point, Bataraza, and Balabac (Deep South). The ban on mining can be limited only to the North and part of Central Palawan. Given the target to reduce poverty from 16 percent to single-digit by the end of the BBM Administration, every effort should be exerted to transform our mineral resources literally into gold (which just passed $4,000 per troy ounce in international markets). In early October 2025, gold soared past $4,000 per troy ounce as a U.S. government shutdown stoked a rally already fueled by prolonged central bank buying and investor concerns over ballooning government debt. Although such high levels of prices of gold may not be sustained indefinitely, the fact remains that the global economy is going to be faced with the prevailing VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) environment for some time to come, which may keep the price of gold at a relatively high level. Using a metaphor that involves another mineral ore, we should strike while the iron is hot and develop to the full whatever gold deposits we have as early as possible.

Furthermore, other mineral ores with which the Philippines is richly endowed—nickel and copper—are indispensable to electric vehicles, solar panels, and digital devices, the demand for which can only increase by leaps and bounds as the Industrial Revolution 4.0 intensifies. Also there is the harsh reality unpalatable to the environmentalists that the Philippines will have to continue mining its coal deposits, even those of low quality, because it will take time for the renewables (especially solar and wind) to bring down the cost of energy. The ones who are most prejudiced by our very high energy prices are the poor. Given that the Philippines has the highest poverty rate among its peers in East Asia, we should not go overboard in addressing the climate change problem, considering that our country contributes less than one percent to the carbon footprint in the global environment. Over the medium term, a more effective way of bringing down our energy prices is the building of modular nuclear plants, a move I find inevitable but fraught with political challenges.

How do we put all of these together to demonstrate that with the appropriate policies and programs, the Philippines does not have to de-industrialize? As we saw above, the countries in East Asia to which we can reasonably compare the Philippines in terms of GDP composition are Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. In all of them, industry accounts for over 30 percent. Given what we have discussed about manufacturing and more extensively about mining, and assuming we can recover from the ongoing scandals about spending on infrastructure, we can target to increase the share to GDP of: Mining to five percent (from one percent), Manufacturing to 19 percent (from 16.2 percent), Construction to 10 percent (from 7.5 percent), and Public Utilities to 10 percent (from 7.5 percent).

I am especially bullish about public utilities because of the very active participation of the private sector, both local and foreign, in investing in energy, water, and transport. It was a wise move for Congress to pass a law in 2020 allowing foreign investors to own 100 percent of the equity of practically all public utilities other than electricity and water distribution, media, and education. Adding all these percentages, they will total 39 percent, very much at par with those of our neighbors today.

An industrialization strategy, however, cannot be implemented in a vacuum. A pre-requisite to any industrial policy is laying the strong foundation of abundant and efficient infrastructures, food security, and human resources development through the constant upskilling, reskilling, and retooling of both managers and workers. For the Philippines, there can be a recovery from the serious initial mistake of focusing on inward-looking, import-substitution, and protectionist industrialization. Local factories can sell profitably to the lucrative domestic market with which the country is endowed today—thanks to its having been spared the population control mentality that was widespread in the last century. Manufacturing can still constitute an important sector of the economy.

There must, however, be a serious effort to address the issue of food security through a two-fold approach of uplifting the lives of small farmers and fisherfolks in such crops as rice, corn, vegetables, and fruits, as well as fish and other aquaculture products, and at the same time a massive reconsolidation of a significant portion of the small farms and forest lands to attain the necessary economies of scale in producing commercial crops such as high-value coconut products, coffee, cacao, bamboo, durian, mangoes, avocado, cashew, and pili nuts (in addition to the already very successful banana and pineapple models). With the supporting focus on infrastructures, large-scale agribusiness can deliver the needed three percent annual growth in the agricultural sector that is indispensable to food security. Helping the millions of small farmers to be more productive will address the even more important goal of reducing mass poverty to as much as possible zero level, a feat already attained by some of our ASEAN peers like Malaysia and Thailand.