ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

From Military Base to Pax Silica: Clark and Capas in Philippine History

The history of U.S. involvement in the region demonstrates how domestic political dynamics can get entangled with regional and global geopolitics.

New Clark City in the Philippines is in the news for being the site of the planned industrial hub of the Luzon Economic Corridor under the United States-led Pax Silica coalition. It is part of the Clark special economic zone and also covers the municipalities of Capas and Bamban in the province of Tarlac. The history of this place can help us better understand the political narratives in favor of and opposed to Pax Silica.

As the colonial ruler of the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century, the U.S. established an air base in Angeles in the province of Pampanga in the central part of Luzon, the country’s biggest island. After the end of World War II, the Philippines became an independent republic but the U.S. maintained the Clark base in Pampanga. It soon became the largest overseas U.S. military camp and a crucial hub during the Cold War era. In 1991, Clark was turned over to the Philippine government after the Senate rejection of the U.S. bases treaty. It was converted into a commercial area and designated a special economic zone to attract investments.

Today, Clark is a strategic business center since it is only less than a two-hour drive from the capital region of Metro Manila. Its international airport is already one of the country’s busiest aviation terminals.

Meanwhile, Capas is outside of Clark but it used to host Camp O’Donnell, an American military reservation. Thousands of prisoners during World War II died in a “death march” from Mariveles in Bataan to Capas. The communist-led New People’s Army was also established in this rural municipality in 1969.

Parts of Capas were incorporated into the New Clark City, which was originally envisioned as a government center and alternative capital to decongest Metro Manila. Sports facilities were built here when the country hosted the Southeast Asian Games in 2019. The stadium cauldron was reported to be overpriced, which implicated key allies of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

The pandemic affected the development of New Clark City and there has been no substantial discussion about the earlier plan to build a new capital in the area.

It generated attention again when it was named as a possible location of the Luzon Economic Corridor, a trilateral initiative unveiled in 2024 between the Philippines, the U.S., and Japan. This was confirmed last April after the Philippines officially joined the Pax Silica coalition.

In several social media posts, U.S. Undersecretary of State Jacob Helberg stated that the hub will be a........

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