BY EDISON JOSEPH GONZALES
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) wants foreign investors to come. It just does not want the country to hand them the keys without first asking what they will build, how many Filipinos they will employ and what resources they will consume.
“You don’t write a blank check just because someone wants to come in,” PCCI Vice President for Trade and Industry Bryan Ang said in an interview on BNC’s “Follow the Money.”
PCCI supports Pax Silica after the government clarified that its focus would be high-level assembly and manufacturing rather than hyperscale data centers, which the business group had initially viewed with concern because of their potential demand for water and electricity.
Ang said data centers would consume substantial natural resources without generating enough jobs to produce significant benefits for Filipino workers.
“When the government announced that it would focus on high-level assembly and manufacturing, then we stand behind it and fully support it,” he said.
Ang pointed to reported interest from companies such as Foxconn, saying a major investment in New Clark City could create a wider ecosystem of suppliers, logistics providers and other businesses.
If the investment materializes, he said, the Philippines could become a major player in the Asean manufacturing landscape as suppliers and other parts of the production chain follow.
But PCCI wants government support for major investments to come with safeguards and measurable commitments.
Ang said prospective locators should first demonstrate the capacity of their plants and specify how many jobs they will create.
“We don’t want just rank-and-file assembly laborers,” he said. “We want middle- and high-income-paying jobs to be given to the Filipino.”
He also called for safeguards covering electricity and water, including whether the requirements of new industrial facilities could affect neighboring cities and provinces.
Ang said the country should not simply grant a 99-year lease without first determining what an investor will build, how many jobs it will generate and what benefits it will provide.
He also wants the Philippines to extract more value from its own natural resources.
Copper, nickel and gold, he said, should not simply leave the country as raw commodities when they could be processed into higher-value materials and components used in electronics, appliances and vehicles.
“If you want to narrow the gap of your trade deficit, you have to turn your main exports … to something more valuable,” Ang said.
Ang separately raised the issue of rare-earth metals, saying mining companies can have forward contracts with Chinese buyers even before extraction begins. He argued that the Philippines should pursue higher-value processing rather than simply exporting raw materials at commodity prices.
That approach, he said, could raise export value, narrow the trade deficit and make the country less dependent on imports.
For PCCI, the test for Pax Silica is not simply whether the Philippines can attract foreign capital, but whether those investments create higher-value production, better-paying jobs and a deeper domestic supply chain.