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FOUR YEARS AGO THE USS Belleau Wood sailed out of Subic Bay, shutting down America's biggest overseas naval base. The closing, mandated by the Philippine Senate, was an economic disaster for many people in nearby Olongapo: club owners, prostitutes, restaurateurs, tattoo artists and tour operators, whose businesses depended on U.S. servicemen. But this week Bill Clinton and 17 other world leaders are scheduled to visit an ambitious industrial park that is rising from the shell of the U.S. base. The park is just one sign that the Philippines has begun to emerge from nearly a century of dependence on the United States and is ready, at last, to join the ranks of Asia's economic ""tigers.''
The nation still suffers from extreme poverty--average incomes are less than a 10th of those in Taiwan--but its 7 percent annual growth rate gives the Philippines this year's hottest Asian economy. Filipinos have a new attitude. ""There used to be this notion that ambition was a bad thing, that our country should wallow in humiliation and poverty. We're through with that,'' says Dick Gordon, ex-mayor of Olongapo and chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. ""We're saying, "Hey, world, it's our turn'.''
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Now that its American patron is gone, the country has begun to address a fundamental issue: what can the Philippines do for itself? President Fidel Ramos has liberalized the economy, smashing the crony-dominated system left by the late Ferdinand Marcos. Former Marcos buddies still run many big businesses, but today they have to compete. Liberalization has also made it possible for companies to diversify into other fields. And new businesses, once discouraged by the cronies, are popping up all over.
Educated, professional Filipinos, who left during the Marcos era, are coming home in droves. Many join the new electronics concerns that are trying to leap into high-tech production, taking advantage of the country's well-educated, English-speaking work force. These companies are paying competitive salaries for the first time since the 1970s, when the Philippines had the largest electronics- assembly operations in Asia. ""Now the opportunities are here,'' says Orlando Corpuz, 50, an electrical engineer who spent 10 years working in Thailand and Texas before coming home last year to work for Gateway Electronics, a computer-chip maker. ""If you work hard, something good will come to you.''
All over the country, economic growth has created boomtowns: manufacturing in Cebu, food processing in Negros. Is the progress sustainable? Many Filipinos worry that the country could fall apart again when Ramos leaves office in 1998. His vice president, Joseph Estrada, currently the most popular politician next to the president, is a macho movie actor with a populist streak, but an unproven leader. Still, the growth achieved so far offers hope for the future, even in shabby Olongapo. Subic Bay is no longer home to the U.S. Navy, but it is now the regional hub of Federal Express.
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