23. MAYOR’S NATALDAY IN SUBIC OLONGAPO

MAYOR’S NATALDAY IN SUBIC OLONGAPO

Dr. Troy Alexander G. Miano

05 March 2017

Cabatuan, Isabela’s ninth local chief executive, Honorable Charlton L. Uy invited us to celebrate his 40th birthday today in Subic. One of Mayor Uy’s sangguniang bayan member is my wife, Jasmin. We stayed at the Subic Bay Venezia Hotel, one of Subic Bay Freeport Zone's premiere hotels located at Canal Road, Olongapo City while Cabatuan’s first couple stayed at the prestigious Subic Bay Yacht Club along Rizal Highway.

Looking at the Cabusilan Mountains (part of the Zambales Mountain Range and where Pinatubo Volcano is situated), I remember the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, and by far the largest eruption to affect a densely populated area, occurred at Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991. The eruption produced high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, giant mudflows, and a cloud of volcanic ash hundreds of miles across. Olongapo City which is only 35.5 kilometers from the summit of the volcano was very much affected. Our relatives by affinity (Santos family) from downtown Olongapo sought shelter in Cabatuan, Isabela until the city was deemed safe to live in.

As always, I surfed the net to know the etymology of the name “Subic” and “Olongapo”. The native Zambales inhabitants called the area “Hubek”, which means "head of a plough". Spanish missionary priests mispronounced the name as “Subiq”. During the American Occupation, "Subiq" was mispronounced as “Subig”. Eventually, the name reverted to "Subiq", but the letter 'q' was replaced with letter 'c'. The term “Subic” was used as the name of the bay in southern Zambales, the name of a town 14 kilometers north of Olongapo and the name of the U.S. Naval Base which later became a Freeport. 

On the other hand, the name “Olongapo” came from a popular legend, there once was a group of warring tribes who lived in the area in and around what is now the modern city. A wise old man (known as apo), seeing the perils of disunity, exerted great effort toward uniting the warring tribes. There were, however, some who bitterly opposed his idea, and one day the old man just disappeared without a trace. After a long search, the old man's body was found, but with the head missing. It is said that the tribesmen launched search parties to locate the severed head of the man; to the Sambal, decapitation was the only permissible form of assassination. These efforts proved to be futile, and the search was eventually called off. A young boy, however, vowed to himself that he would not stop searching until he found the elder's head. He searched for weeks, but found nothing. Then, one day, he chanced upon what appeared to be the old man's head, resting on top of a bamboo pole. The boy ran back to his people crying, "Olo nin apo! Olo nin apo!" ("head of the elder" in Sambal; translates as "ulo ng apo" in Tagalog), running hysterically from house to house and village to village. The phrase stuck and that’s how the locality got its name, “Olongapo”.

Subic Bay is the home of the municipality of Subic which was founded in the late 1607 when Augustinian friars headed by Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel started that the natives in Subic especially Negritos and Aetas was Christianized under the rule of Spain. Visitors usually confuse “Subic” town with “Subic Freeport”.

Gerald R. Anderson’s “Subic Bay From Magellan to Pinatubo: The History of the U.S. Naval Station, Subic Bay” gives description to the United States military facility. Naval Base Subic Bay was a major ship-repair, supply, and rest and recreation facility of the Spanish Navy and subsequently the United States Navy located in Olongapo, Zambales. The base was 262 square miles, about the size of Singapore. The Navy Exchange had the largest volume of sales of any exchange in the world, and the Naval Supply Depot handled the largest volume of fuel oil of any navy facility in the world. The naval base was the largest overseas military installation of the United States Armed Forces after Clark Air Base in Angeles City was closed in 1991. Following its closure in 1992, it was transformed into the Subic Bay Freeport Zone (SBFZ) by the Philippine government. SBFZ is operated and managed by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority or SBMA. It covers the fenced area of the former U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay. 

Olongapo, on the other hand, was a small fishing village of Subic.  The Aetas were the first settlers. Google narrates that in 1884, the Spaniards conquered Olongapo and made the place as their navy settlement. King Alfonso XII (1857-1885) declared Subic Bay as Spain’s stronghold in the Far East for its deep water harbor and the protection provided by the mountains surrounding the place against strong winds. In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Admiral George Dewey took Olongapo and Subic Bay making the bay area and the whole Olongapo as U.S. Military reservation. The Americans spent an estimated cost of 170 million dollars in converting the base. Filipinos demanded that Olongapo be returned under Philippine administration and on December 7, 1959, the locality was turned over to the Philippine government and converted into a municipality by virtue of Executive Order No. 366 signed by President Carlos P. Garcia. On June 1, 1966, President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed Republic Act No. 4645 making Olongapo as a chartered city. In 1983, Olongapo City became the highly urbanized city in Central Luzon. Olongapo City rose from a "sin city" in the 1960s and 1970s to become a "Model city" in the 1980s and 1990s. Subic Bay is the Philippines' first successful case of a military base converted through volunteerism into a tax and duty-free zone similar to Hong Kong and Singapore. As a destination, Subic Bay has maintained its allure that once charmed US servicemen and their families. Its community continues to preserve and protect the bay, its surrounding forests and its flora and fauna. Interesting sights to see are its resident eco-tourism theme parks - the Ocean Adventure, the country's only open-sea marine park - Zoobic Safari, and the Pamulaklakin Nature Park which is home to the indigenous Aetas who once trained the U.S. Navy in jungle survival tactics.