From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Subic Bay
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:43:57 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.filipino
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


	SUBIC BAY NAVAL BASE, Philippines (UPI) -- After nearly a century of
use, the U.S. Navy Wednesday transferred most of what had been its
largest overseas base to the Philippines.
	``Today, we are at the beginning of a new era...when national power
and influence depend not on military strength alone, but increasingly on
economic performance,'' U.S. Ambassador Richard Solomon said as he
turned over control of Subic Bay Naval Station. The last 1,400 U.S.
personnel at Subic immediately withdrew into Cubi Point Naval Air
Station, in the western end of the 62,000-acre Subic compound.
	All troops are scheduled to depart Subic by Nov. 24 -- the final date
for withdrawal of all American forces from the Philippines, a one-time
U.S. colony. The Philippines won independence from the United States in
1946.
	U.S. troops seized Subic in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.
	Six years later, President Theodore Roosevelt deemed the area a U.S.
military reservation.
	For most of the next 97 years, Subic played a key role in U.S.
military operations, whether launching battle ships to Europe in World
War I or serving as a transit point for supplies during the Gulf War.
	Some 43,000 Filipino civilians also worked in and around the base up
until the pullout.
	``I'm ready to cry,'' said one such worker, Georgette Laborc, who
spent the past 13 years at Subic. ``This base has been a very big part
of my life, and I an not prepared for the Americans to leave.''
	Last year, the Philippine Senate rejected a proposed 10-year, $1
billion extension of the Navy's lease on Subic. Manila gave Washington
until the end of this year to leave the facility, located about 50 miles
west of Manila.
	Wednesday, Solomon and Adm. Thomas Mercer turned over Subic in a
quiet ceremony.
	Richard Gordon, a Philippine mayor who will lead the effort to turn
Subic into a free port, accepted possession of the base on behalf of
Manila.
	He vowed to use the facility, which has an estimated $6-billion worth
of infrastructure, including a massive ship-repair facility and 26.4-
megawatt power station, to ``make the Philippines not just a tiger, but
the economic lion of Asia.''
	As for the U.S. military, officials have said that because of the end
of the Cold War, they did not plan to replace Subic with a base in some
other country. Instead, the Navy intends to rely on a network of
military-access agreements with several Southeast Asian countries.
	The United States also declined to seek a new lease on its other
mammoth Philippine installation, Clark Air Base, which sustained severe
damage last year during an eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano.
American troops quit Clark in late 1991, leaving Subic as the final U.S.
military installation in the Philippines.
	But the easing of East-West tensions shifted the focus of U.S.-
Philippine relations from military matters to civilian ones.
	``The U.S.-Philippine partnership will increasingly be based on
economic and commercial relations, cultural contacts and human ties,''
Solomon said at the transfer ceremony.
	Gordon vowed to make good on a Philippine government pledge to
provide jobs for Filipinos whose livelihood depended on the base.
	``We will show the world that we can do it,'' Gordon told hundreds of
Filipino base workers. ``Today we are taking over the future of the
country.''
	Dozens of investors from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the United
States and other nations have already expressed an interest in helping
make Subic a free port.
	The base boasts a well-protected, deep harbor, as well as the most
modern infrastructure in the Philippines. Analysts say that with
government incentives, it could be a booming economic center.
	But so far, investment guidelines are vague. And while executives say
Subic represents a golden investment opportunity, they add that the
risks appear daunting.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino