Another look at Subic

Daisy S. Payumo ardently wishes that her husband, Felicito "Tong" Payumo, would take early retirement. She wants him to rest. But several seconds later, she withdraws the wish, and explains that it is impossible in the near future.

Tong Payumo assumed his current post as chairman and administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) on Sept. 1, 1998. Before that, he was congressman of the first district of Bataan for three consecutive terms (1987-1998).

The Chairman has come a long way from the day–his aides like to recount–he got lost en route to the University of the Philippines in Diliman and ended up in the campus of Ateneo de Manila University, where he decided to enroll. Both schools had accepted the teenager from Dinalupihan, Bataan.

The "Chairman," as everybody in the Subic Bay Freeport reverently calls him, has "such an abundance of adrenaline" that "being on the go is his second nature," his wife shares. The minute he speaks of retirement, she says she would worry and "probably tell him to see a doctor."

Their children–Antonio, 29, Anita, 26, Angela, 24, Aileen, 21, and Alexandra Assuncion, 11–are used to their father being super-busy. However, the Chairman can occasionally be spotted chaperoning their bunso to a movie in the Freeport.

By 2004, the Chairman relinquishes his post. He admits candidly that he entertains the possibility of returning to politics via an elective position.

"I do not want to stay longer than my term which ends in 2004. I may like it too much that I may have to be physically pulled out of my office," he declares, the calculated response a polite and diplomatic allusion to the well-publicized turbulence that accompanied his assumption of office.

As early as now, Tong Payumo has set his sights beyond the magnificent mountains of Subic. "There is life after Subic. Life has to move on. An elective post is an option. I think my stint in the public sector as an elected official and as an executive in the private sector have helped me in my current job here which requires both the harsh and rigid efficiency of a private sector individual and at the same time the insights and the people-sense of an elected official," he says.

The Chairman sees going back to an elective post as "one of the better ways to serve." Prior to his political involvement, his company was one of the pioneers in deploying Filipino workers to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The Payumo family had supported Filipino and American guerrillas based in the provinces of Bataan and Zambales during the Japanese occupation by sending them all their farm produce. "When the Japanese learned of the extent of our family’s involvement, we had to move from place to place." After the war, his father was appointed mayor. When his father died, a brother ran for election and held the post for 18 years. The ambush that killed his brother propelled Tong to politics. His initial foray was helping the presidential campaign of then opposition leader Corazon C. Aquino and he eventually extended this support by also working for the ratification of the Aquino Constitution in 1987. From then on, it was smooth sailing to the House of Representatives.

Payumo summarizes his post as chairman of the Freeport as a unique hybrid of private-public sector job. "One cannot be simply a politician in this job and go along with the mood of the moment. One must be grounded in the marketing side too, the financial aspect, the accounting, the human behavior of the organization. You cannot approach this job on a totally politician’s instinct (since) you will not be credible to your investors who will be sinking in their money. You have to inspire trust and confidence...that you know what you are doing. (And yet) it is not just a corporate job where you go full-speed ahead and launch the torpedoes, and all you care about is the bottom line and to heck with the other stakeholders and constituents. Our stakeholders at the SBMA are community people, investors and employees. You have to consider all of them when you make decisions."

Most mornings you can find the Chairman at breakfast at the coffee shop of the Subic International Hotel, usually with senior staff members and business people from the Freeport. Nevermind if he was up until 2 a.m. the night before.

"A lot of businessmen in the Freeport usually have breakfast with the Chairman to discuss candidly matters that greatly affect business here. We like this no-nonsense, informal type of discussion where issues can be threshed out honestly, away from office politics, away from the glaring eyes of the media, away from gate-keepers," a businessman shares.

John Corcoran, president and COO of Ocean Adventure, agrees. "Business is going well. The Chairman is very supportive and wonderful to deal with. He is our best marketing director."

Payumo is determined to make the Subic Bay Freeport a center for growth not only for Central Luzon but also for the entire country. He talks of developing the Freeport into a "globally competitive, self-sustaining and environment-friendly center for industry, commerce, finance, investment and tourism in the Asia-Pacific region." And he wants this accomplished with a twist: That Subic become a prime example of the "symphony of industry and nature," which means trying to genuinely balance development and ecological considerations.

Payumo has this grand plan to develop Subic harbor and seaport into a world-class trans-shipment and cargo handling facility, to extend its "synergies beyond its physical boundaries," to develop tourism-related facilities to attract both local and international tourists, and to develop an information communication technology infrastructure to make the Freeport a cybercity. But he still has to deal with what he calls "distractions", charges of alleged smuggling of cars and illegal drugs through the Freeport.

"We do not want Subic to become a trans-shipment or an entry point for smugglers. We cooperate with responsible agencies. But we want them to apologize if the reports they received were wrong or false. Reputations are besmirched and then you have the delays in the movement of goods. It costs money to unload and reload goods," he says as we tour a plant reported to have smuggled kilos of shabu inside wooden crates in container vans. On allegations that cars are being brought into Subic without proper documentation, he says imported cars are unloaded in Subic but proper tariffs are imposed.

Get him started on the subject, and "Subic’s Salesman" spews out numbers and data like Mt. Pinatubo spitting out lava.

From January to March this year, the Bureaus of Customs and Internal Revenue collected P745 million at the Subic Bay Freeport, surpassing last year’s P615 million by 21 percent. The Freeport’s manufacturing sector showed strong performance in the same period, exporting $300 million, or an expansion by 25 percent from the first quarter of 2001. In terms of employment, the Freeport created 4,889 new jobs in the same quarter. At present, there is an estimated 51,929 employees at the Freeport, including 5,000 employees at the SBMA and its subsidiary, the Freeport Service Corp. More remarkable is the 297 percent increase in tourist arrivals during January-March this year, which means that 2.45 million local and foreign tourists trooped to Subic. The figure surpasses all annual figures since 1997. As for Subic port revenue collection, it swelled by 106 percent to P57 million for the first quarter of the year.

Subic is in the process of being transformed into what Payumo calls a local version of Silicon Valley. "I want to make Subic possess all that will make e-commerce thrive…and finally (for it to have) an e-government where applications, permits, payments and approvals are done on line. Citizens-online, rather than citizens falling in line," he quips.

"Subic, and to a very large extent Clark, is not about leasing real estate to investors. It is about the ability to move goods, data and services to destinations and market places ahead of our competitors."

Brochures herald the Subic Bay Freeport as "the only place in the Philippines connected to the global information super-highway via microwave, satellite and submarine fiber optics." The Freeport is on its way to creating a five-hectare software development park to be established at the Subic Bay Industrial Park Phase II. This is hastened by the extensive information technology infrastructure already in place. Also on the drawing board is an engineering and software development center at the Subic Techno Park. Among the investors that have set up software development activities at the Techno Park are Omron and Nippon Ceramic Co. Ltd. In 1999, SBMA signed an agreement with Oracle Systems Inc. to provide information technology facilities for local start-up e-businesses in the Freeport.

CyberEd, a cluster of academic institutions or cyber universities promoting distance-learning programs through the Internet, is the latest addition to Subic’s strategy to put itself in the cutting edge of information technology. A number of these institutions have been transforming an area in the central business district of the Freeport into a nascent university belt. Among the educational institutions already present in Subic are the Ateneo Graduate School of Business-Center for Continuing Education, Brent International School, Regional Science High School, Ramon Magsaysay Technical University-WLAC, Freeport Institute for Research, Science and Technology, Aura Mondriaan College, Comteq Computer and Business College and the Department of Education Special Education Program.

And in a move to retool the educators themselves to meet the challenges, the University of the Philippines’ extension program in the Freeport is set to lend its expertise via the setting up of a Science, Mathematics and English Training Program aimed at equipping teachers with the latest tools on teaching grade school children instead of college and university-level students.

As our convoy ambles through the Japanese Techno Park, the Taiwanese Industrial Park, the Subic Bay Techno Park and the Federal Express depot, one gets a tentative impression that all the sales talk might just be more then mere talk, that indeed the Freeport is a major contributor to Philippine economic development.

"My job is to creatively attract investments, create jobs, increase export earnings and contribute to the national coffers through improved collection of duties and taxes," Payumo says.

He readily admits that "there were many things already done here; we do not take that away from the previous administration." But he adds that under his term, Subic continues to attract the entry of new investors in the form of new lease or sub-lease agreements and the expansion of existing investments. Among those which expanded their operations are Federal Express, Brand Rex, Koryo Subic, Aparri Electronics, Active Alliance Inc.

Latest additions to the string of Japanese companies in Subic are Sanyo Denki, a world leader in the manufacture of small, precision motors; Sankyo Seiki, one of the biggest publicly listed companies in Japan engaged in the production of micro-motors for hard disk drives and pick-ups for digital video disks (their new plant was inaugurated by President Arroyo last month) and Juken Sangyo, maker of world-class wood panels and decorative lumber boards for offices and houses.

But he counts on more lasting accomplishments to mark his term. "The things that I have started are not things that can simply be erased. The port development, the Subic-Clark Alliance for Development, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac toll road, and the information and communication technology infrastructure are projects that could not be reversed," adding that "it was good enough to be around during the ground-breaking" of these projects.

On top of these, Payumo wants to strengthen institutional linkages within the Freeport. "While we already have the physical infrastructure, the software component is just as important. In institutional strengthening, I would like to focus on customer service. Our customers are investors and tourists. I’d like customer service to be a distinguishing factor for Subic among public agencies. Public agencies have always been criticized as uncaring, bureaucratic and non-responsive. In the end, chairmen and administrators come and go, but the people within the institution should keep it going. Will the people within the institution chase investors to come to the Philippines or will they behave like bureaucrats? This institutional strengthening will take longer to accomplish than the bridges and the ports, but a start has to be made."

FUNtastic SUBIC is Payumo’s battlecry to lure more local and foreign tourists to visit the Freeport. He is marketing Subic as a "family-oriented vacation center" and as a "sports mecca." He dreams of having both Subic and Clark host the 2005 Southeast Asian Games that could provide initial regional exposure for the new President who will be elected in 2004. "Some events could be held here and some in Clark. We do not have as much land as Clark, but we have much more interesting terrain. Maybe we can hold the opening of the Games in Clark and the closing here," he ventures.

Subic has a wide variety of terrestrial and marine resources. Various eco-tourism attractions in Subic include the famous Bat Kingdom, JEST Camp, Butterfly Garden. There are also facilities for scuba-diving, fishing, camping, water sports, motor-car racing and golf. A significant number of tourists are still lured by the Freeport’s tropical forest trek and the opportunity to interact with Aeta residents.

Other attractions include the Ropes Course, a team-building facility and one of only three in the country, Grande Island, Hill 394, a new waterfront boardwalk, the Triboa Bay Mangrove Area and the Apaliin, Pamulaklakin and Boton Falls Trails.

Not forgotten is the cultural side of recreational facilities. The former Subic naval station theater has metamorphosed into a center for the arts and renamed Subic Bay Arts Center where several of the country’s top artists have performed.

Ocean Adventure, which advertises itself as Southeast Asia’s first and only open-water marine park, is managed by a core of professionals who were once involved with theme parks such as Ocean Park in Hong Kong, Walt Disney World and Animal Kingdom in Florida. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the whales are kept and perform in a natural habitat, which is actually part of Subic Bay. When we dropped by to catch a show in the 700-seat El Capitan Theater, male whale Tonka and female whale Hook were performing acrobatics. We joined scores of Taiwanese and Chinese tourists in enthusiastic applause.

Ocean Adventure’s education-entertainment programs are geared toward educating the people on the need for environmental protection. "In this respect, children are learning faster than adults," says Corcoran, who also reveals that part of his company’s commitment to help preserve Subic’s ecological balance is cooperating with UP Los Baños experts. "Our joint team is like a bellweather. We test water quality at several points in the bay. Protecting the environment is not only a job for the government. It is also our job."

"Subic is a very good excuse for people to get out of Metro Manila," Payumo declares by way of invitation. Subic Bay Freeport is indeed a singular incentive for Metro Manilans to get some genuine rest and recreation without leaving the country, without the hassles of jetlag and stringent airport security checks. It’s an invitation that’s hard to resist.