Between a Rock and a Stormy Place: From Overheating to Expulsion in Subic Bay (Philippines)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the dynamics behind recent land and water appropriations in Subic Bay (Philippines). The communities adjacent to the former US Naval Base Subic Bay have undergone major transformations since the US military left in 1992. Through the establishment of a Freeport Zone, the area has become a hub for foreign direct investors seeking to profit from the Philippines’ low labour costs. Today, the most important investor in Subic is a South Korean conglomerate that has built one of the largest shipyards in the world in the area. The shipyard, providing labour to tens of thousands of workers, has also led to the dislocation of hundreds of subsistence fishers. With their old fishing grounds lost due to increasing pollution and newly established water boundaries, these villagers find that both the land and water they depend upon are increasingly becoming a scarce good.

KEYWORDS:

• Dispossession
• land
• water
• environment
• crisis
• Philippines

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As part of ERC Advanced Grant funded project ‘Overheating. The Three Crises of Globalization’, I have conducted seven months of field research in Subic Bay, where between September 2013 and April 2014 I explored the impact of the South Korean shipyard on the communities nearby.

2. Throughout the paper, pseudonyms have been used and small personal details changed to protect the identities of informants.

3. The KPD (‘Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya’, Movement for National Democracy) is an organisation from the Philippine radical Left. It focuses on forging multi-sectoral alliances amongst the most impoverished segments of Philippine society (i.e. amongst urban poor communities, fisher folks, indigenous people and informal laborers), where they try inciting a mass movement for social change.

4. At the time of its construction, Hanjin’s shipyard in Subic was said to be the world’s fourth largest shipyard. The shipyard is under Korean management, with many of the foremen being Korean, too. However, all the ‘rank-and-file’ workers are Filipino.

5. For a history of Hanjin’s involvement with the US Armed Forces, see Woo (1991) and Glassman and Choi (2014).

6. See the Al Jazeera-documentary ‘Storm in Subic Bay’ – http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2011/12/2011121391029605826.html.

7. The neighboring areas of Castillejos and Olongapo have equally seen a rise in residents that can partially be attributed to the lure of the shipyard. Data found at National Statistics Office of the Republic of the Philippines (http://web0.psa.gov.ph/).

8. Exact numbers on how many people were displaced between 2006 and 2009 are impossible to come by – KPD-activists, however, said that approximately 1,000 families were affected. Through data given in newspaper articles on the topic (see Domingo 2006; Mangampo Ociones 2006; Orejas 2007; Orejas 2008a; 2008b), together with several smaller displaced sitio that were not reported on but that I came across during field research, it seems that this number of 1000 relocated households is relatively accurate.

9. Piano went on to explain that while the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has set the water quality standard for total coliform to 1000 mpn/100 ml (i.e. most probable number of coliform per 100 ml of water), the average downstream coliform level in all 13 rivers (within the bay) was more than 800,000 mpn/100ml (Gonzaga 2012).

10. Even though ‘Samahan ng mga Manggagawa sa Hanjin Shipyard’ (Association of Workers at Hanjin’s Shipyard) was boasting a membership of several thousand workers in 2010, Hanjin has so far refused to acknowledge this union. They argue that they are the wrong address for their workers’ claims as practically all of its Filipino workers are employed through its network of subcontractors. Additionally, quite a few workers associated with Samahan have been laid off, or are facing discrimination at the shipyard (such as delayed promotions, harassment, etc.). The Filipino Department of Labor, faced with the unionisation requests made by Samahan (and similar organisations) has also argued that Philippine Labor stipulates that workers can only unionise within the companies that employ them (i.e. their subcontractors). Samahan, as a result of this, has registered as an association instead, but Hanjin objects to the usage of its name in the association’s title. The legal case over this issue has gone through several instances already.

11. For more information on this struggle, see the website of the anti-coal coalition http://notocoal.weebly.com/nocoal-news.html#.VPmuyXbKxaQ.