SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chair and administrator Wilma T. Eisma urged employees of the Subic agency to stand steadfast amid changes and challenges as they march headlong in further developing and transforming the Subic Bay Freeport.
In her message during the celebration of the SBMA’s 27th founding anniversary at the Volunteers Park here on Friday, Eisma urged employees to be ready for more hard work to come.
“Anniversaries are a time to remember how we worked hard to make things happen. They are a time to remember that Subic Bay Freeport belonged to the people who helped build it to what it has become today,” Eisma said. “But anniversaries also remind us that we are up for a challenge —and the future is our challenge. Change is our challenge now.”
“The future is our challenge and it is now out there. I trust that we all will be brave enough, strong enough, working together enough, to take care of our future,” she added.
Eisma made these exhortations while reminding SBMA employees of the agency’s commitment to further develop the Subic Bay Freeport into a bigger, better, and brighter community for investments and inclusive economic growth.
She said that while many changes had happened since SBMA was established in 1992, the Subic agency will have to initiate more changes to sustain its mission.
With this drive to propel Subic to further development, the SBMA employees would necessarily bear the responsibility of becoming agents of change and innovation, she added.
The SBMA is now commemorating the 27th year since the US Navy relinquished Subic Bay back to the Philippine government following the non-renewal of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement. By virtue of Republic Act 7227, or the Bases Conversion and Development Act of 1992, what was America’s biggest military base outside the continental United States became the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
Twenty-seven years after taking over an abandoned complex of facilities and forest lands ravaged by the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority has successfully transformed Subic Bay into a commercial enclave of more than 1,600 companies employing more than 135,000 workers, and remitting P25 billion worth of revenue to the National Treasury as of last year.
Last Friday’s 27th anniversary program also included the presentation of a citation from the Department of Tourism in Region 3, which named Subic among the top 10 tourist destinations in the country in 2018, based on surveys of accommodation establishments.
The certification given by DOT regional director Carolina Uy showed Subic as a leading attraction because of its “wide array of quality standard tourist facilities, positioning as a premier cruise ship destination, and level of visitation generated from local and foreign tourists.”
The day-long anniversary celebration also saw the blessing of facilities and venues for the coming Southeast Asian Games, a mobile passporting project, and the traditional lighting of a giant Christmas Tree at the Boardwalk Park to herald the arrival of the Yuletide Season.
