Scientists dispute Pax Silica's promises as BCDA names 3 affected barangays
A scientists' group says the Tarlac AI hub will not bring lasting jobs and will take water away from farmers. BCDA has already listed the residents it will affect.
The scientists' group Agham publicly disputed the claims behind Pax Silica, the United States led plan to build a 1,600 hectare high tech hub in New Clark City in Tarlac. The site is meant to host artificial intelligence infrastructure, data centers, and advanced chip assembly. Agham spokesperson professor Giovanni Tapang said the Bases Conversion and Development Authority has given the public an incomplete picture of what the project will do.
The part that is new is not the argument, it is the paperwork. Agham said BCDA already released an initial list of Project Affected Persons earlier this month, and it names residents of three barangays in Capas, Tarlac: O'Donnell, Aranguren and Santa Lucia. Data from the Capas municipal government says more than 30 percent of the town's land is productive farmland.
These are the farmers and IP groups that will be displaced. Displacement can be direct physical displacement or indirect displacement by loss of livelihood, and the immense scale of the project will undoubtedly affect the livelihoods of farmers both inside and outside the project area.
Why it matters
BCDA has been selling Pax Silica on jobs, saying it could generate more than 130,000 high quality jobs for Filipinos. Agham's counter is that a project this size will hurt farming communities and will not create clear, long term opportunities for the country. Until now that argument was abstract. With an initial list of affected residents out, there are specific barangays that can be checked, and specific families who can say whether a job offer ever reached them.
The catch to watch
This is a dispute, not a verdict, and neither side is neutral. BCDA and the Department of Foreign Affairs are defending the project, while environmental and farming groups oppose it. Two claims are worth tracking because they can be measured later. Agham says the data centers cannot really run on renewable energy, since they operate 24 hours a day while solar and wind come and go, and it points to data centers in the United States falling back on diesel generators. It also says collecting rainwater for the site still means less water for farmers and for communities downstream. Ask for those numbers before the first building goes up.