By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
Villas designed and landscaped by Hawaii companies
sit at Subic Bay.
Business storms ashore
Former U.S. bases in the Philippines
By Susan Kreifels
are the new Promised Land
Star-BulletinSUBIC BAY, Philippines -- Like admirals stationed here for almost a century, businessman Guenter Zillig sat in his Subic Bay office talking about strategic location, the dynamics of Asia and why Americans needed to be here.
It didn't take long for business to figure out why the U.S. Navy tried so hard to stay at this bay.
"The Navy was here for strategic reasons," said Zillig, general manager of Eagle Comtronics Asia Inc., a New York company that set up here a year ago to produce cable television filters. "We're just like the old Navy. We're sitting in the hub."
Since the U.S. military pulled out of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay in 1991 and 1992, respectively, the bases have been turned into special economic zones that are already turning away industries for lack of space. The rush here, officials say, has created opportunities for Hawaii businesses.
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
Demonstrating the new spirit of Subic Bay are Richard Gordon,
center, head of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, and young
Filipinos and Filipino-Americans who work with him. "If I was
in Hawaii and wanted to be close to the action,
this is the place," says Gordon.
There is a growing need for services: suppliers, bankers, accountants, ship and air services, computer-software experts, health care, hoteliers and people who know the tourism business. All things Hawaii people can provide."If I was in Hawaii and wanted to be close to the action, this is the place," said Richard Gordon, who heads the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.
A cheap, hard-working, English-speaking labor force in a democratic government, located three or four flight hours from major Asian capitals, has given American companies here a chance to become more competitive in the region.
"It's the East that will have the greatest expansion," said Zillig. "All around us are customers. There's a great labor market and tax incentives. Now we're beating our Asian competition."
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
At Asia Prepress Technology in Subic Bay,
a worker inputs data for textbooks.
Gordon led a quick recovery after the U.S. Navy, voted out by the Philippine senate, left more than 30,000 employees and thousands more in Olongapo jobless. But it also left $8 billion worth of infrastructure intact. Zillig operates in a former weapons-calibration building that was virtually a turnkey operation.Everything from yachts and military tanks to oxygen masks and telephones are exported out of the bay. The Taiwanese computer giant Acer Inc. is finishing a mammoth factory, and the Japanese have built an industrial park. A new highway and tunnel cut through the pristine, indigenous forest that surrounds Subic Bay, allowing traffic to turn into the base several miles outside Olongapo City.
The sprawling Clark, still much the same looted, ash-smothered wasteland abandoned by the U.S. Air Force after the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, was slower in developing. Much bigger than Subic and half the driving time from Manila, Clark is catching up quickly.
The Air Force's departure, said Romeo David, who heads the Clark Development Corp., "was a blessing in disguise."
By the year 2002, Clark is scheduled to be linked to Manila by a new expressway and high-speed train. And there are plans to make it a major international airport and a world-class aviation center, David said.
Clark turns out 50,000 televisions a month and 10,000 tires a day. In the former base supply area, a team of Irish glass blowers teach Filipinos their skill in what they called Asia's only crystal factory. Silicon Valley's computer industry is also eyeing the area, David said.
David also envisions Clark as the "Las Vegas of Asia" and an alternate gambling site to Macau, which will go back to China in 1999. Harrah's Entertainment Inc. will build a casino with 8,000 hotel rooms.
Tourism, mainly Filipino, is thriving at both places. Part of the draw is the limited duty-free shopping allowed to residents; part is fascination over the once spit-and-polish bastions of U.S. power. For decades, the bases were forbidden fruits to most Filipinos.
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
The tower at what is now called Clark International
Airport reaches toward the sky.
Today the former military commissaries, clubs and quarters have been transformed into duty-free shopping malls and glitzy restaurants, hotels and casinos.On weekends, Subic's 3,000 hotel rooms are usually full of Filipinos escaping Manila's pollution. A large, new yacht club fronts Subic Bay, and a former Navy helicopter hangar area is an expansive, stylish airport.
Taiwanese tourists who don't need visas if they stay inside the base fly in on daily charter flights.
Of Subic's 1,876 houses, 500 have been leased long-term to wealthy Filipinos and expatriate business people, 500 are under renovation and an additional 800 are being held as "cash cows."
Prices start at $60,000 for a 25-year lease.
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
The former Clark Air Base was slower in developing than was
Subic Bay, but Clark is catching up quickly. Above, a worker shows
off crystal made at what officials said is Asia's only such factory.
Most of Clark's 1,500 housing units remain ash-filled shells, reminders of the chaos that followed the volcano.All have been bidded out to developers and are being renovated slowly.
For Filipinos in the area, especially the young, Clark and Subic represent a promising future.
Carlos Andres, Subic's media relations officer, once thought Manila was the "promised land" in the Philippines.
But he's making the equivalent of about $320 a month, enough to send his brother to school.
"This," Andres said, "is now the land of opportunity."
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
Doming Blanhigan taught U.S. pilots jungle survival skills.
Since the Navy pulled out of Subic Bay, his audience has
been tourists. "I miss them pilots," he said.
‘If the military comes back,
By Susan Kreifels
we'll be here’
Star-BulletinSUBIC BAY, Philippines -- Doming Bulanhigan skillfully slices a piece of bamboo with his machete, demonstrating how to carve rice cookers and spoons and draw water from this life-sustaining plant. The 52-year-old Negrito is a master of jungle-survival skills, acquired from decades of teaching Marines and sailors his secrets. But since the U.S. Navy pulled out five years ago, his audience has become tourists from the Philippines and Taiwan.
"I miss them pilots," Bulanhigan said, shaking his head slowly. "My name was the most popular in the whole Navy. Yes, mum, we love them. If the U.S. military comes back, we'll be here."
Many Filipinos who worked for the U.S. military here and at Clark Air Base now have jobs in the economic zones. But they said salaries, benefits and management styles don't match those under the Americans, and there's longing to have them back. "Whenever I see Americans, I want to hug them," said Vevencia "Babes" Pabon, who worked at Clark's civilian personnel office and now sells renovated homes on the base. Americans stationed at the bases can still see plenty of reminders of past lives, although in altered states. The A-5 Vigilante parked beside the Cubi Point officers' quarters is painted with flowers and a bold "RP 2000" across the nose, referring to the country's economic plan.
The cockpit sticking out of the wall of the Cubi Point O'Club bar, famous among Navy aviators, has been hammered into an eagle to represent Subic Bay's current "new eagles of Asia" theme.
The ghosts of Marine security still haunt Subic. Paranoid drivers count three seconds at every stop sign before driving forward. Trunks are still checked at gates for smuggled goods. Security officers snap to attention and yell out general orders at demand in both Tagalog and English.
Clark's historic "barn" cottages that line the parade ground have been preserved as offices and restaurants. The base's monkeypod and fire trees remain untouched, and Telegraph Hill stands as a comfortable landmark if you get lost in the many duty-free shops around the old commissary and hospital area.
Beyond the gates, Magsaysay Avenue leading out of Subic Bay is quiet at night, the hostess bars and discos gone. Richard Gordon, head of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, was determined that Olongapo City would not be a "sin city" forever. But hostess bars remain open down the road in Subic City.
Outside Clark, Angeles City's flesh trade is flourishing. Many familiar bars along Fields Avenue -- Birds of Paradise, Sky Trax, DMZ -- are frequented by Australian and European tourists. The bars and prostitutes are featured on sex-tour web pages, which say 2,000 bar girls work outside Clark.
Romeo David, head of Clark Development Corp., said the prostitution "disturbs me. It's not congruent with what we're doing here." But with Clark's focus on tourism and gambling, many in Angeles expect Fields Avenue won't change.
By Pat Lucero, Star-Bulletin
"The golf industry was going downhill in Hawaii.
I couldn't pass up this super opportunity. We love it,"
says Logan Hamocon, formerly of Kailua.
Former Kailua man manages
By Susan Kreifels
posh, private golf course
Star-BulletinCLARK AIR BASE, Philippines -- In the midst of looted houses and ash, the Mimosa Leisure Estate stands like a garden of Eden. The golf course once crisscrossed by carts of U.S. Air Force generals has become the former Clark Air Base's showcase, one of the top three courses in the Philippines.
The 36-hole private course was designed by Hawaii's Robin Nelson of Nelson & Haworth Golf Course Architects and landscaped by Belt Collins Hawaii. And a Kailua man is the course superintendent. "I never thought I'd end up here," said Superintendent Logan Hamocon, who lives in former officers' housing with his 2-year-old daughter and pregnant wife. "The golf industry was going downhill in Hawaii. I couldn't pass up this super opportunity. We love it."
Hamocon is training for assistant general manager with CCA Asia, a management company. He hopes to return to Hawaii as a course general manager one day.
The resort is owned by Mondragon Leisure & Resorts Corp. out of Manila. Holiday Inn has made a luxury hotel out of the former Chambers Hall billeting, adding rooftop hot tubs and Las Vegas revues. The hotel was named last year's best and busiest in the Holiday Inn chain.
Renovated villas around the hotel rent for $250 a night and Hyatt is renovating 125 more. Entertainment and restaurant complexes are going up in the former Wagner School complex. Other housing areas are developing time-share condos.
The course has 1,200 members, including Air Force retirees who ended up millionaires by the investment. Memberships that cost $8,000 in the beginning are now worth $80,000.
"Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves to believe where we are," said Joe Velardi, resort general manager.
The 1996 numbers show how far the former Clark Air Base and the former Subic Bay Naval Base economic zones have come since the U.S. military pulled out of the Philippines in 1992. The economic bases
CLARK
Exports: $136.3 million, expected to double this year.
SUBIC BAY
el,3cf,gva,7 Source: Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Clark Development Corp., and U.S. Navy
Business at Clark, Subic
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DISADVANTAGES
