Senator Imee Marcos on Monday, August 3 has formally filed a resolution urging the Senate to look into the proposed Pax Silica project’s impact on the water and electricity resource demands and long-term environmental impacts on the country’s natural resources. 

Marcos made the call in light of reports the Pax Silica Initiative in New Clark City, Capas, Tarlac, is already underway despite lack of community consultation and feasibility studies.

President Marcos’ sister said the goal of Senate Resolution No. 547 is to strengthen the country’s current laws and regulatory frameworks to safeguard water, energy and food security, and also promote environmental sustainability.

The senator pointed out that the biggest concern raised by environmental and scientific organizations is not the technology itself, but the enormous amount of water and electricity needed to keep Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and large-scale data centers running.

"Because unlike conventional office buildings, AI data centers and servers inevitably generate intense heat and must be continuously cooled to prevent equipment failure which require vast quantities of clean water, while the servers themselves require a stable and uninterrupted electricity supply 24 hours a day,” Marcos stated in the explanatory note of SRN 547.

Last April 2026, the Philippines joined the Pax Silica, a United States-led initiative on AI and supply chain security, which seeks to balance global tech manufacturing capacities, particularly in semiconductor fabrication, computing component processing and critical earth material procurement.

Other countries that joined the Pax Silica Initiative also include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, United Kingdom, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Qatar and India.

But Marcos said the initial impact assessments indicate that semiconductor manufacturing, AI data center cooling, and critical mineral processing hub will demand an estimated 130 million liters of water per day, a volume equivalent to the daily consumption of roughly 600,000 households, as well as three (3) gigawatts of electricity, representing a least 16 percent of Luzon’s current grid capacity.

While the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) has stated that the proposed hub will utilize surface water and water-impounding technologies capable of supplying up to 90 million liters of water per day without affecting community water sources, she said concerns remain as to whether such measures are sufficient enough to meet the project’s water demands and adequately protect surrounding communities and the environment. 

“While the Pax Silica initiative promises significant long-term economic growth, foreign direct investment (FDI), and job creation, serious concerns persist regarding its heavy footprint on local land use, rural agricultural livelihoods, ecological stability and environmental sustainability,” she said.

Moreover, she said the country’s agriculture and food security may also be adversely affected, as increased demand for water and other resources could reduce access to irrigation for farmers, increase utility costs for households, worsen land displacement, suppress wages, cause environmental degradation and place additional pressures on the lands and livelihoods of local and indigenous communities.

“There is an urgent need to determine whether existing laws, including the Water Code of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 1067) and the Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004 (Republic Act No. 9275), among other relevant statutes, remain adequate to regulate emerging industries, or whether additional legislative safeguards are necessary to ensure that agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability are prioritized over industrial allocation,” the lawmaker stressed.