By Jaime Sinapit
InterAksyon.com
InterAksyon.com
America’s submarine tender the USS Emory Land sits on Subic Bay in this InterAksyon.com file photo, just meters across the “Hands That Freed the Nation” Memorial celebrating the historic 1991 Senate vote that ended US bases presence in the Philippines. Subic Bay, however, has been hosting US ships on “R and R” and refueling and civic missions the past few years; and a “mini-Subic” is envisioned on Oyster Bay in Palawan.
MANILA – In a move seen to raise alarm bells yet again in Beijing, a Philippine defense department panel will open early next month bid documents for a P314-million project to modernize the naval base facility at Oyster Bay, overlooking the West Philippine Sea.
Philippine officials stressed Wednesday the improvements at the facility—touted to boost territorial defense and serve as shelter for naval warships, including those of the United States that is seeking an agreement to increase its military’s rotational presence in the country—are not directed at any particular country. One official, however, described the envisioned look of the facility after the upgrade as like a “mini-Subic,” a reference to the now-bustling Freeport that for seven decades served as the largest US naval base outside the US mainland. Though the US base at Subic was dismantled with the defeat of a treaty extending its lease in 1991, Subic Bay has been hosting an increasing number of US warships on recreation and refuel trips the past few years. The Oyster Bay area in Palawan, meanwhile, is just 160 kms away from the Spratly island chain, an oil-rich area being claimed in whole by China and which includes the Philippine-occupied Kalayaan Island Group.
The Department of National Defense has set Dec. 2 for the opening of the bid documents of participating firms for the construction and improvement of the Oyster Bay facility, an undeveloped in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, said an announcement issued by Assistant Secretary Efren Q. Fernandez, chairman of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) for the Bases Support and Logistics System project for the Philippine Navy.
Fernandez did not name the firms expected to bid for the multi-million project.
Earlier, the commander of the Naval Forces West (NAVFORWEST), Commodore Joseph Rostum O. Peña likened the conversion of Oyster Bay into a naval facility as like building a “mini-Subic”.
The project has two segments: construction of pier and harbor at the Naval detachment (Lot 10) worth P237,121,130.22 with a timeframe of 406 calendar days from opening of the Letter of Credit; and construction of support naval facilities (Lot 11) worth P76,493,826.89 with 250 calendar days.
The bidding process began November 11 with the purchase of bid documents, followed by a pre-bid conference on Nov. 19.
The development of Oyster Bay is projected to be finished before President Benigno Aquino III’s term ends in 2016.
China the past 18 months has stepped up its incursions into the West Philippine Sea [how the Philippines refers to the South China Sea], maintaining both civilian and military ships in Ayungin Reef in KIG and Bajo de Masinloc (Panatag/Scarborough Shoal) in Masinloc, Zambales.
Deflecting criticism that developing Oyster Bay might be seen as an “in-your-face’ move by the Chinese, the spokesperson of the Western Command (Westcom), 1Lt. Cheryl Tindog, said the mandate of the Philippine Navy is to develop its naval facilities, and developing a place like Oyster Bay is not directed at any country like China.
Tindog said: “It’s for our territorial defense, for our internal security operations. Actually, that’s part of our mandate of territorial defense . . . It shouldn’t be surprising. What would be surprising is our failure to improve our capability for something like that despite the fact it is part of our mandate.”
She added that the Navy is “happy that these efforts to improve our capability in terms of territorial defense has materialized.”
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