Volunteers Day

SUBIC BAY METROPOLITAN AUTHORITY — Twenty-seven years after the helicopter carrier USS Belleau Wood sailed out of Subic Bay on November 24, 1992, ending an almost century of stay by the American military here, this former biggest overseas naval base of the United States now stands out as a thriving economic zone and beckoning a bright and progressive future for the community.

The remarkable growth of the abandoned base over nearly three decades has completely wiped out all the gloom and doom and the prevailing pessimism at that time regarding the future of a community and its people whose existence totally depended on the presence of the American base.

It was an outcome hardly expected considering a destructive volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo just look place in June of 1991 followed by a rejection of an extension of a treaty by the Philippine Senate in September of the same year.

In December of 1991, there was a last-ditch attempt by both the US and the Philippine governments to negotiate an extension that would allow a prolonged withdrawal of the US military but this too bogged down and then President Corazon Aquino issued a formal notice for the US to leave Subic by the end of 1992.

Then City Mayor Richard Gordon mustered and mobilized an army of volunteers, numbering some 8,000, to take over the abandoned base and protect and preserve the $8-billion properties and facilities left by the US Navy.

Gordon, who is now a senator of the republic, used his decisive leadership to inspire and motivate his people to chart their own future by volunteering for the newly created government agency – the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. Thus, began the journey to the present Subic Bay.

Twenty-seven years later, Olongapo’s economy stands renewed. Jobs have quadrupled, businesses very much alive, and there is increased economic activity felt everywhere.

That the Freeport was formerly a huge US naval base and Olongapo was a liberty town and its service economy depended on the arrival of ships and sailors was slowly being forgotten, especially by the new generation of residents who only see the Freeport breathing life into the city’s economy.