SBMA: tourists safe in Subic amid theme park feud

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — Tourists and event organizers have expressed apprehension that a management dispute at a marine theme park here posed a threat to the safety of visitors.

Jem Camba, head of the tourism department of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), said she received calls and e-mails from the organizers of a triathlon event seeking assurance that their participants would be secure. A thousand athletes joined the event held inside this free port on Sunday.

“The organizers expressed their concern over reports that there were armed men at the Ocean Adventure but we were able to clear things up immediately. The athletes didn’t cancel their (hotel) bookings and the event pushed through,” Camba told the Inquirer by telephone on Monday.

Ocean Adventure has been at the center of a management rift after its new chief executive officer, Scott Sharpe, took over control of the facility from Arthur Tai on Feb. 13.

About 20 policemen from Morong town in Bataan province secured the premises of Ocean Adventure during the takeover, according to Subic Bay Marine Exploratorium Inc. (SBMEI) officials.

SBMA Chair Martin Diño said in a Feb. 23 radio interview that around 70 armed men occupied Ocean Adventure, barring employees from entering the theme park.

But SBMA Administrator Wilma Eisma appealed for sobriety as she dismissed reports that it took 70 armed men to enforce a management takeover.

She said the facility was a subject of an intracorporate dispute, which was being resolved by the owners and management of SBMEI.

Eisma said an inspection by the Department of Labor and Employment showed that operations at Ocean Adventure “continued to run normally and peacefully.”

“We are informing the public that everything is normal and that the security and safety that is expected within the free port zone is and will always be there,” she said. —ALLAN MACATUNO