IMAGINE lounging in a veranda overlooking the vast ocean while sipping a glass of red wine; waves cascading against stone cliffs, the sun setting and gradients of pink, orange, blue and violet blending in harmony in the sky like a painting.
Below you see custom-designed houses, hotels, restaurants and shops; street lights illuminating the crawling alleyways and stairs, couples holding hands with their child on their way to dinner.
Sounds like Amalfi Coast in Italy? Yes and no.
Yes, because that is the vision. And no, because it is envisioned to be in Subic a decade and a half from now, according to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma.
Even after hours of discussion over the developments and issues about her hometown, Amy, as those who are close to her call her, was still full of energy when she shared with the BusinessMirror how she envisions Subic in the next 25 years.
Armed with a paper full of images of Sorrento, Italy, Eisma enthusiastically said the future of Subic is for it to be developed as a tourist destination similar to Amalfi Coast in Italy or Santorini in Greece, both of which have terrains and coastlines that echo the best features of her proposed area of development.
“My dream of 25 years from now is to transform Subic into a world-class resort destination,” she said. “It’s not a burden, I would like to say that it’s a challenge,” she said, upon prodding by the BusinessMirror at a recent BM Coffee Club forum.
The vision is to develop Anawangin Beach to sport its own port, where cruise ships can dock directly so that tourists can disembark. From there it will take just 20 minutes to reach San Antonio, Zambales, where the tourism center will be.
Hotels will dot the rugged cliffside area, rustic restaurants will be spread out to offer Filipino and international delicacies, and inviting shops and other businesses will be set up to attract more tourists.
“I don’t want the shoreline to be developed. I want the development to be up in the mountains, because the coastline is a rugged terrain. The development is up, and we will not touch the shoreline, because the sea is our main selling point. It will remain pristine,” Eisma, a native of Subic, explained.
The area that she mentioned is virtually empty of development. It used to be a target practice range for the artillery of the US troops when they were still here, before the Philippine Senate voted in September 1991 not to renew the bases treaty.
Bridge to Redondo Peninsula
To complement this and to cut travel time from the Subic Bay Freeport to San Antonio, Eisma said her group is also planning to build a bridge from Blue Bay Marina to Redondo Peninsula.
The bridge will run for about 6 to 12 km, depending on the final design and alignment, and could cost roughly P9 billion.
“Once the bridge is there, investments will come in,” she said, noting that the multiplier effect could help boost revenues for both the government and the locals.
It will take billions of pesos to build her dream, and Eisma is now working on securing deals with investors to build one infrastructure and real estate after another—that’s Plan A.
“We’re all dreaming, and hoping to take it there and we’re actively searching for people who will make it happen,” she said.
Already, the feisty leader of the government-controlled corporation is in talks with several investors who are interested in developing Subic into a bustling central business district, which may involve some P2 billion of investment in terms of reclamation alone.
“Someone is seriously looking at it—that someone is a very, very serious taker,” Eisma added.
Eisma, a former lobbyist, was known to have secured money from the national government to fund certain infrastructure projects in the Subic Bay Freeport. She wants to replicate and multiply this to a higher magnitude to turn her vision into a reality.
However, if she fails to strike deals with investors to build her dream, her Plan B involves getting money from the government coffers.
“I want to jump-start everything to make this happen—whether I will take in an interested investor or get money from the national government,” she said, noting that the second plan will involve the similar manner by which nearby Clark City was developed.
However, if she fails in the first two plans. Eisma’s Plan C is to put in institutional and legal templates to strengthen SBMA and generate enough funds to bankroll projects that will further propel Subic to higher heights.
Currently, Subic has about 1,600 business locators with a total work force of about 133,940 employees, majority of which are locals of Olongapo, Zambales and Bataan.
As of June, the SBMA has so far approved 45 new investment projects with a total worth of P2.85 billion, resulting in cumulative investment commitments in Subic to P499.6 billion.
The investment pledges for the first half was 290 percent higher than the P731 million generated in the same period the year prior. These are expected to create some 2,500 new jobs in the free-port zone alone.
Likewise, from January to June, 13 business locators have proposed expansion projects for their companies to the tune of P276 million combined, generating roughly 290 new jobs.
“Subic is not stopping from going out there to sell itself as the investment haven in the Philippines. We continue to attract more investments, and the new thrust for good governance and transparency has increased investor confidence as reflected by our numbers,” Eisma said.
To keep this trend going, Eisma’s Plan C involves the institutionalization of the changes that she has so far implemented, the updating and improvement of the law that created her agency, and the adoption of a single vision for the development of Subic.
“Assuming for the sake of argument that I fail on this dream, what I want to leave Subic with—so they could move on to the next 10 years to 25 years—is first to leave them this dream so they can continue working on it,” she said.
Strengthening the BCDA
Eisma explained that her fallback is her current work in amending Republic Act (RA) 7227, known as the Bases Conversion Development Act of 1992, to strengthen the organization.
“If you ask me what I want to leave, so they can continue with the kind of development and that the growth trajectory would not go down and will continue to go up, is to put on the systems that should have been placed many, many years ago so they can follow this trajectory,” she explained.
The law remained untouched from its promulgation 25 years ago, when the Americans left Subic after the devastation caused by Mount Pinatubo.
“We have to amend the law. It’s been 25 years, and I’m hoping that before the end of my term, we could put in the needed amendments to strengthen us some more to become attractive,” Eisma said.
Her proposed amendments include the allocation of a certain portion of the revenues to SBMA’s cashflow for capital and operational expenditures. Locators—or businesses that set up shop in Subic—pay 5 percent of their gross income taxes to the national government.
“We don’t get any portion of that, we are just collectors,” she said. “Hopefully, we can get a share of the income.”
Eisma lamented that over the last 25 years, her agency had very little wiggle room in terms of budget, given that it does not receive a portion of the corporation’s revenues.
She noted that she even had to ask both the Legislative and Executive branches of government for money to bankroll road projects that were very much needed to improve mobility in the area.
“We have to have a stronger system based on the law—if we are able to amend RA 7227 and give them this additional, revitalized law, where we could get a little bit of money,” she explained.
Currently, the House of Representatives has concluded deliberations on the committee level for the amendments, and a committee report has been finalized.
“My fear is for the legislative calendar to end—that is why I’m working ahead, having engagements thinking that if it doesn’t pass now, I don’t want to start from scratch again,” she said.
Her hope now is for the next batch of lawmakers in the House to just adopt the committee report, so that the work done during the 17th Congress will not be put to waste. Once she’s done with the Lower House, she can start working on the Senate “to finish it in the next three years.”
Legal, institutional templates
Aside from this, another amendment that she proposed was to include a representative from indigenous peoples (IPs) of Subic on the SBMA board.
“Because at the end of the day, a big amount of property belongs to the IPs. This is to protect their interest,” she said.
Eisma is confident that the amendments will come into play before her term ends, as she “takes advantage of that love for Subic from both the Lower and Upper Houses.”
“We now have all legislative districts finally coming into a dream of what is best for all of us and putting aside all our political differences. I am very happy that we are on that track already,” she said, referring to how the decades-long rivalry between Olongapo and Bataan, which stalled both their development, had finally been broken.
Strengthening the agency that she leads through legislative amendments, she said, will help Subic achieve the dream that she painted—something that she describes as grand and bizarre.
“My dreams are lofty and surreal and it will take longer than 10 years to make it happen. But I want to be able to put in systems so that whoever follows me and my people who will stay behind will be able to follow through these dreams,” she said.
The administrator and chairman of the SBMA is coterminus with the Philippine President.
“What we need is for everyone in the agency to be strong and deeply convinced to make the right decisions over popular ones. With that, we bring Subic to where it’s supposed to be without the need for a new vision from a new administrator,” Eisma said.
Continuity and consistency, she said, are key to achieving the agency’s goal of further developing Subic into a haven of tourism and investments.
“We don’t need a new vision every time there is a change in administration, but there should be an overall vision for the place itself,” Eisma emphasized. “It’s not about the administrator.”
She said she is “working very hard” for these initiatives to turn the vision into a reality, doing all three plans concurrently to optimize results.
“The job is very hard…it’s my people who continue to inspire me to just do more and do better,” Eisma said.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes