Subic traders ask Duterte to step into SBMA row

Subic has been the port of choice of US navy vessels like the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh which docked at the Alava Pier late last month.—ALLAN MACATUNO

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – Officials of the Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce (SBFCC) have appealed to Malacañang to step into the ongoing rift between top officials of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) and install a professional manager to restore order and stability to the agency.

SBFCC President, Rose Baldeo, said the leadership issue between SBMA Chair Martin Diño and SBMA Administrator Wilma Eisma over Diño’s alleged encroachment into Eisma’s management functions has caused confusion among business locators as well as prospective investors in Subic.

“What we need is stability and harmonious business atmosphere in Subic,” Baldeo said in a statement sent to Inquirer on Friday.

She said SBMA “should be headed by a professional manager who is knowledgeable in business, who can positively engage investors and can inspire trust and confidence among both locator-companies and agency employees.”

‘Capable manager’

SBFCC vice president, Derrick Manuel, shared Baldeo’s assessment that a “capable manager” was needed to head the SBMA.

“The agency has been run by leaders with expertise and passion for SBMA since its inception,” said Manuel, who was among the volunteers who started the so-called Subic miracle in 1992.

He also said he supported Eisma, a fellow volunteer. “I have always had the greatest respect for the intelligence and work ethic of Administrator Eisma. Wherever she has gone…she has always pursued excellence,” he said.

“Thousands of volunteers and the other workers who subsequently gained employment in Subic worked so hard to build this free port, so we have to insist that Subic should get the best,” he said.

The ongoing rift between Eisma and Diño was triggered by the latter’s administrative order forming a task force to inspect and monitor the business and financial operations of SBMA.

Eisma said the order “interfered and encroached on the power, function and duty of the administrator and chief executive officer.”

Board action

The board of directors also believed that the task force would infringe on the board’s oversight functions.

While Eisma got the backing of SBFCC, Diño had been supported by the ruling PDP-Laban in the SBMA leadership conflict.

In a statement on June 23, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, PDP-Laban president, said Diño “enjoys the full trust and confidence of the President (Duterte).”

The House of Representatives had launched an inquiry into the SBMA leadership row, after lawmakers convened an ad hoc and special committee on bases conversion to hear Diño and Eisma explain their rift during the legislators’ visit here on June 7.

In a letter to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on June 8, Baldeo presented the SBFCC’s position that “it would be for the benefit of the SBMA and its locators to have only one person for the position of SBMA chair and administrator instead of separating the two.”

Baldeo said the confusion caused by the separation of positions “runs contrary to the mandate of SBMA to create a harmonious environment for the businesses to generate employment opportunities in and around the zone and to attract and promote productive foreign investments.”—ALLAN MACATUNO