(This was written just before the pandemic hard lockdowns. The Hanjin Shipbuilding facility on the bay was already mothballed then. It was bought by an American company and would soon be operating full blast. How would it affect the immediate environs with all the industrial waste it will generate? The message of this piece has become more imperative with the EMB of the DENR declaring unsafe the other day the coastal areas of a town in Cebu due to coliforms from human shit.)
The beautiful place “between the silence of the mountain and the crashing of the sea” is not there anymore.
The expressway ended into the now commercial hub that arose from the ruins of the once American Base in Olongapo (the Sin City) popularly known as Subic. Actually, Subic is a barangay of Olongapo.
We used to frequent that place from the late 80s to the early 90s, right after the Americans were driven away by the then spewing Mt. Pinatubo. Driving early from Metro Manila, you would be at the place after two hours. It would not yet be hot enough for a relieving dip. The beaches were clean and there were not much people enjoying the greenish-blue water.
There were no ships waiting around the bay waiting to be unladen. All you could see then were a banca every now and then lazily floating towards unknown destinations.
Now, when we got there last weekend, there were a lot of people looking for parking spaces, or competing for the makeshift cottages where vacancies were hard to come by. Obviously, Filipinos now have more money and that we had been very busy assuring the continuity of the geometric rise in the population.
The trip was for the kids to experience a beach and to know how it is to be swimming in salt water. For us who are ‘taga banbantay’ that is not so common.
Another purpose as far as I was concerned was to show them the effects of different kinds of mentality. So we also passed by Clark. There were wide open spaces with trees. As the kids said, it was like UP Los Banos. When we got to Subic, it was almost the same—wide spaces with trees all around. While there are now commercial buildings closer to each other than how it was when it was a base, the remains of the open spaces are still obvious.
I was confused because the SCTEX (Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway) ended right inside the used to be US base, which is now a commercial center. The SCTEX was built from scratch, meandering through agricultural plains and hills that were cut out. There is a very short tunnel punched through a hill. The usual route which is still what public transport use goes through the main town of Olongapo then you go to the gates of the former base. The town is typical Filipino development— tagpi-tagpi—with the wall of one house touching that of the next. Each neighbor becoming privy to the domestic affairs of the other.
You enter the used to be base and the difference is like night and day. It is modern development without congestion.
The Americans by nature, need spaces around them while we Filipinos would do things the congested way with small houses, many of which are made of light materials. I guess, it is not a question of lack of resources. It is more of the effect of our mentality.
As we found out, the beaches in Subic are not anymore that pristine. The surrounding houses are so congested and I would not be surprised if they did not have independent septic tanks. The beach is a convenient place where to end sewer lines. And with all the ships parked around the bay whose occupants might also find it convenient to dispose of their waste into the water, there is a high probability that PDu30 would describe the bay as a cesspool. But it seems that nobody cares. Where are the Department of Tourism and the DENR?
So we took a motorized banca (there is a lot of them there now catering to tourists) to go to a teeny weeny island in the middle of the bay where the water was clear.
The crowd on the public beach was multinational. It was at barangay Subic where we only paid a thousand pesos for the “cottage” and for the shower rooms cum CRs. Third world but people make do.
There is a private resort inside the former base but I heard they charge big. You even have to pay “corkage” fees for the food you bring in.
After the crowded beach, we went back to the commercial center for lunch and then the kids and the ladies went to the duty free shop while I invited our driver to the hardware. Nothing really special there except the prices which were in US dollars.
If you ask me if the trip was worth it? Not, economically. For the educational part of it, yes.
One of the kids earlier suggested the beaches which are near Baguio but these is the possibility these are also cesspools with some sewer lines ending up there. Tourist dependent towns should be wary of these.
To be sure, for fresh and clean beaches you might have to go all the way to Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. Or why not Boracay? **APP
