Former Employees of Subic Naval Base call for increased US Navy port calls
TWENTY-TWO (22) years after the bases pull-out in 1992, the former base employees, many home from the United States and other foreign countries, held their first ever grand reunion.
In line with the Olongapo City Council resolution declaring every third week of March as Former Base Worker’s week, the reunion was launched on Sunday, March 16, with a Holy Mass at San Roque Chapel, Subic Bay Freeport.
“We have to have the reunion now, we’re all getting old and diminishing in numbers,” Ernesto Tawatao, co-chair of reunion executive committee (execom) said.
The 2nd day of the week-long reunion saw the former base workers join the flag-raising cermony of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) employees in the Subic Freeport which used to be the US Naval Base.
After the flag-raising ceremonies, with the assistance of Mayor Paulino, SBMA Director Cynthia Paulino, Atty. Ruel Kabigting and Grand Reunion Co-Chairs Ernesto Tawatao and Roberto Flores, SBMA Chairman Roberto V. Garcia led the lowering of the time capsule for the planned Former Base workers’ Marker nearby in a vacant lot in the corner of Dewey Ave. and Taft St.
The Time capsule contains the design of the commemorative marker and copies of Subic Bay News which featured the countdown to the Grand Reunion, including the recent “street meeting” of former base workers with US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg in Subic, among others.
On Tuesday, the 3rd day of the reunion, a two-week Photo Exhibit of Subic Base and Freeport pictures was launched at Harbor Point Ayala Mall.
Later in the evening, the former base workers, specially the balikbayans held a “shindig” or no-host party at Pier One, also inside the former base site. The reunion came at a time amid calls for increased US military presence in the face of China’s move to grab Philippine territories in the West Philippines Sea, also known as South China Sea.
Sentiments are presently seen as high in the Philippines, especially in Olongapo City and nearby communities, for the return of the US Bases but the current constitution does not allow any foreign military base in the country.
The former Base Workers favor increased US military presence under the existing PH-US Visiting Forces Agreeement (VFA) as a viable alternative, both as deterrent to Chinese aggression and for economic reasons and have initiated a signature campaign calling for the same.
After 96 years, the US shut down their Naval Base in Subic in 1992 when the Philippine Senate rejected a year earlier a treaty that would have allowed continued US Military presence in the country.
Over 22,000 direct hire and an equal number of indirect hire workers in the base were displaced, not to mention businesses and their employees doing business with the base.
Coupled with the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, scores of thousands suffered as a result of the base closure which many Olongapo, Bataan and Zambales residents opposed in the past and still are up against to the present.
The reunion culminates on Friday, March 21, with a parade from R. Magsaysay Drive to Remy Field where festivities will continue, including the awarding of “outstanding” fomer base employees.
