Subic Bay Memories

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Top Gun.  Solid Gold Disco.  Rock & Roll In Concert. Cindy Bar.  Florida Club.  Rock Cafe.  Rock Expo.   The Green Apple.  Shakeys.  The Playboy Club.  Strawhat Pizza.   The Jazz Club.  Cork Room.  Brown Fox.  The Body Shop.  Kong's Restaurant...

For many of us, these names bring back special memories.  They were theclubs and various entertainment-oriented  businesses which welcomed American sailors and Marines to Olongapo City, Philippines. Despite the Navy's dire attempts at "OPSEC," every Filipina in every club and bar knew just when American naval vessels were due to arrive at the adjacent Subic Bay Naval Base. Banners hung over every club entrance with such greetings as "Welcome USS Pelilieu," "Welcome sailors and Marines, USS Blue Ridge."

A visit to Olongapo was special in many ways.  To the sailors and Marines not stationed at Subic, it was a chance to get the hell off a ship, into some civies,and into the most exciting town in the Orient.  For newbies, this was their chance to experience what had become legendary - a night in Olongapo.  For returnees, it was an opportunity to visit old haunts and look for old friends (yes, usually Filipinas).  For the bar owners it meant money, and lots of it.  And for the Filipinas employed at the various clubs it meant not only income, but often the chance to meet the right guy and, if they were so disposed, to  start the move eastward.

There was nothing quite like the excitement servicemen felt at liberty call the first night in Subic.  While a few unlucky guys got stuck with Shore Patrol or some other duty, most of the sailors and Marines waited anxiously in line aboard ship for liberty to be sounded.  When it happened, hundreds of hungry, thirsty, and incredibly bored men shot off the ship and toward the main gate. 

Even before the servicemen made it off the base, Olongapo made its presence known by booming rock music over the gates.  Even those new to the base were able to find the front gate by following the thunderous bass radiated by the nearby Playboy and Hot Lips clubs. 

Once you made it past the guards at the front gate, you crossed a bridge which spanned a river known simply as the "Shit River." Not a pleasant name, but fairly appropriate given that raw sewage from the town was often dumped into it.  Boys in little, flimsy boats beckoned from below the bridge, telling passers-by to throw pesos or centavos into the river.  When a coin did get thrown, the boys would dive into the filth and somehow retrieve the coin.  The navy eventually tried to discourage this practice by putting a fence along one side of the bridge.

Then you were in town!  Where to go?!  Groups of seven  or eight guys would immediately split apart into smaller groups, each destined to their own favorite bar or club.  Pop music, country music, and heavy metal intermingled in the air.   The smell was one of streetside barbecues and jeepney exhaust mixed with the salt air and perfume.  Bright neon signs lit up the streets for as far as the eye could see.  It was like the ultimate theme park.  It was, especially after months aboard ship, simply paradise.

Money changers, usually young girls, sat in small booths and tapped wooden rulers on the counters or glass panes in front of them in order to attract attention.  Having selected a money changer and filled your wallet with pesos, it was into a club you went.

Actually, it was probably into a dozen clubs you went, even if you had a favorite.   While flashy clubs like Playboy and Florida Club on the main strip (Magsaysay) drew the newbies, veterans would stick to the smaller, cozier clubs like CindyBar on Gordon street.  But no matter who you were, it was unlikely that you would frequent only a single club.  That would be like going to Disneyland and riding a single ride.  And anyway, once you decided on your escort that night, she would almost certainly want to go club hopping, especially if she had friends working in other bars who she wanted to gossip with.

Most smaller clubs had a uniform layout.  The bar would be in the shape of a U, surrounded by stools for patrons.  In the center of the U would be a long, thin stage on which a dozen or so girls would dance, wearing one or two piece bathing suits (one piece became the norm in the late 80's because of an Olongapo city law, though outside of Olongapo the dress code became much more liberal).  Occasionally there would be poles connecting the stage to the ceiling which the girls would use as props. The girls worked in shifts, dancing for a certain number of songs before coming off the stage, dressing, and tending the bar while others replaced them.  While dancing, a girl would often catch a sailor or Marine staring at her (intentionally or not); a smile from the girl usually meant that she would move to that guy's position at the bar once her time on the stage was done. 

Making the connection, i.e., developing a relationship with a serviceman, was not as easy as might be assumed.  Even though there were thousands of sailors and Marines in Olongapo when the ships were in, there were many times that number of girls working in the bars.  The ratio was pleasant for the men, but an obstacle for those girls wanting to meet one of them.

A relationship would normally develop between a Filipina and serviceman over a San Miguel, Red Horse, or some Tanduay Rum.  There would be the standard small talk, the girl often making the initial conversation (what ship are you from? do you know so-and-so? have you been to PI before?).  There might be a few games played with coins (for example, trying to slide a peso up a bottle of San Miguel with only one finger - starting from the bar itself!), or jokes, etc.   Eventually a rapport would develop and the guy would suggest that the girl leave the bar with him.

There was, of course, the matter of the "barfine." The Philippines was unlike Korea, Thailand, and some other liberty stops in the that prostitution was, in PI, technically non-existent. You could not, normally, pick up a girl of the street.  Streetwalkers were illegal and, at any rate, could hardly compete with the nicer girls inside the clubs.  Most of the Filipinas who worked in bars, being good Catholics, did not consider themselves prostitutes.  In many ways this was true.

A barfine worked like this:  if a guy sat at a bar and got to talking to one of the girls behind the counter, he could ask her to leave the bar with him.  The girl had the option of saying yes or no, though the bar owner or mama-san would often discourage refusals.  Still, girls could, and did, refuse invitations by servicemen to go out on the town.  This was one aspect of the barfine which distinguished it from prostitution.

If the girl was agreeable, however, there would be a fine.  Technically, you were not paying for the girl.  In fact, the money you paid to the bar was to compensate the owner of the bar for the loss of the girl's work that night.  This is because most of the girls worked for little or nothing other than tips.  So if you wanted to deprive the bar of what was essentially free labor, you had to at least compensate the owner for the loss.  Thus the "fine."

Granted, the girls did normally receive half of the fine.  But this was merely a bonus paid by the bar to the girl for bringing it repeat business.  Barfine amounts depended upon the bar.  In the 1980's, barfines at the flashier places on Magsaysay could go for as much as 500 or even 600 pesos a night - about $30 to $40 US.   In the smaller bars fines averaged 400 pesos and sometimes even less. 

Once the barfine was paid, the girl was given a slip of paper from the mama-san on duty.  This was the girl's "pass" and allowed her to walk the streets with you and enter other clubs.  Every club had a guard (often wielding a shotgun) at the entrance who checked the pass of every girl attempting to enter.  Girls without passes were assumed to be streetwalkers and were refused entrance, sometimes even arrested.  Unless they knew the guard, of course.

So what did a barfine get you?  The only thing a patron was guaranteed was that the girl would be allowed to leave the bar with him.  This came as a rude shock to some Olongapo newcomers, who assumed that the fine ensured him of a night of sex.  It did not.  True, the girls were highly encouraged by the bar owners to consent to sexual requests, and the girls themselves sometimes did so simply to ensure another barfine the next day, but the girls were not obligated to do anything. On most first "dates" the best you could hope for was a kiss, unless the girl was an unabashed "professional."  Most were not, however.  Most were girls from villages or other islands who served customers drinks most of the night, but who suffered the indignity of wearing a one piece bathing suit every hour or so in order to keep their jobs.  They did this in order to make a few pesos for their family, and more often than not, in order to find a nice American guy who was marriage material so that she and her family might actually have a future of some kind.  These Filipinas tended to cluster together in groups for safety and solace, and seethed whenever they were compared (usually by an uninformed media) to the professional gals that danced naked on the runways of perimeter bars.  It was a very unfair comparison.  One might just as well compare a waitress at Hooters to a girl in a Thai massage parlor.  It was unfair, and the less promiscuous girls were horrified at the image the public thrust on them. 

This was especially true of the "cherry girls." These were younger girls who worked in the bars primarily for the tips and accepted barfines only from men whom they knew very well and trusted not to demand sex from them.  They did not dance on the stages in bathing suits, and were usually exempted from doing so because of their age (15-18 yrs. old seemed to be the average).  Cherry girls were usually assumed to be virgins (as the name implies), though this was not always true, of course.  Their reasons for working in a bar varied.   Some  needed the tips, some liked the music, and some just liked to work with their girl friends so they could gossip all day.  Some had nothing else to do.   Most, of course, were looking for husbands.

Once the barfine was paid, a couple would head out...to another bar.  The girls usually decided what bars would be visited, either because they liked the music there or because they had friends that worked there.  Inside, conversation between the man and woman was very limited due to the volume of the music.   In the larger clubs women in pink uniforms traveled table to table selling roses while Filipino men traveled the same circuit offering to take photographs of the couples.

After some dancing and drinking (the girl almost always requiring a glass, even for beer, and even then usually nursing the drink for hours), the couple might go and play a game of pool at the Brown Fox, or catch a pizza at Shakey's or Strawhat, a hamburger at Wimpy's, or a real meal at Kong's.  A few would catch a flick at a theater where Tagalog and American action movies ran back to back without pause.  But as the night progressed, a many migrated to hotels like Salem, apparently named after the cigarette.  There was no shortage of available rooms in Olongapo.

And so the night would end.  If concrete relationships were established, a serviceman could sometimes buy a lifetime barfine from the bar.  This would be a large, flat fee paid to the bar to ensure that the girl would always be available for the payee.   Some of the girls liked this arrangement because of the implied commitment, and because it often served as an excuse on their part not to accept barfines from men they didn't find attractive.  Note that a lifetime barfine did not necessarily prohibit the girl from accepting barfines from other men, and it did not carry over if the girl quit one bar and began working at another. 

The culmination of all this bar activity? Marriage. Most of the bargirls wanted to marry an American.   The truly amazing thing is just how successful the girls were in achieving their goal.  Olongapo was a virtual Fil-Am marriage factory, as was Clark Air Force Base. Almost 23,000 Filipinas attended the mandatory "Bride School," a prerequisite to marriage to an American serviceman between 1972 and 1992. (Dave, a friend of mine on the internet, has been kind  enough to send me two scanned pages of a 1992 copy of the Subic Bay News.  The headline is: "Bride School Graduates Last Class." WARNING: These scanned images are a bit large, so after you click on the link that follows, why don't you go grab a snack or something?  Ready? Have a look! Also, a similar article with a Clark focus can be found HERE.)

When you consider the obstacles - finding the right mate, getting past the military regulations, spending months apart, arguing with friends and family, etc. - a marriage between an American serviceman and a Filipina should have been relatively rare.  That so many marriages occurred is a credit to the Filipinas.   The girls were viciously protective of men with whom they had developed relationships.  They would challenge money changers if they thought the changers had shorted their date any money.  They would interrogate trike drivers before allowing the men to get in the sidecar.  They would warn the men of dangerous places to go.   Such care taking often nurtured in the serviceman a fondness for the girl, a sense of commitment.

Also, most of the girls were hopeless romantics.  From the start most of them made it clear that they were not sexual partners.  They were girlfriends, or "honey-ko's." You would take them dancing and out to eat and give them everything else which a girlfriend was due.  She would meet your friends, and your friends' girlfriends, and you would take vacations together (for example,to Baguio).  You might meet her family (usually an awkward affair).  You would get to know her friends.  You would buy her gifts and swap family stories.  Those pre-port fantasies of choosing a different girl every night would evaporate for most guys.   If you decided to take out another girl, your own friends would question why you were "cheating" on your girlfriend, and you could bet that the "Filipina Network" was working at lightspeed to get word of your infidelity to the right parties.  Despite their most stubborn efforts to remain a "playboy," sailors and Marines usually found themselves in relationships.  Which implied - yes - commitment!  It was a very humbling experience. 

When the ships pulled out, that was a time of tears and promises.  The girls who had found boyfriends would cry, the girls who had not welcomed the arrival of new ships and new hope.  Promises were made by the sailors and Marines to come back, to write, to remain faithful...promises normally broken. Not always. 

This was the experience shared by so many of us.  And while many of us are happy for Subic Bay's success as a trading port, and have friends and family who remain in Olongapo, it's hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia for the old days.  They were such good times, so vivid.  That's why I created this site, to keep the memories alive.  If any of you have pictures you'd like to post here, please send me the scanned versions by email.  Keep it tasteful, though - this is a marriage oriented site, and I don't think our wives would care for a lot of JPEG's of topless Filipinas.  Besides, all of you guys know where to find that stuff (don't you?).

Oh yeah, and I'm especially interested in videos.  I have some video of Olongapo which I made after the base closed (1994) which shows the town without the bars.  If you have some video of the town while the base was there, I'd like to splice the two and create a composite tape which could be offered to site visitors.  This isn't a commercial site, so we're looking at a small markup for the trouble of putting the thing together and mailing it, but it might be worth your while.   I'm sure others would appreciate it.

If you haven't already been there, ANYONE interested in Subic Bay (but especially you former jarheads, squids, and zoomies!) should visit Sgt. (USMC Ret.) James Holub's fantastic website dedicated to the area.  More stuff on his site than you can squeeze into a seabag.  It's HERE. Go there now.  That's an order.

If you'd like to see some interesting photos taken just recently of Subic and Olongapo. click HERE.

Another GREAT site is Marine Barracks, Subic Bay Philippines.  Pictures, newsletters, memorabilia, you name it, if it's got anything to do with jarheads in the P.I., you'll find it here!

And let's not neglect Clark Air Base, one of the greatest installations in the Pacific before the Philippine senate and a volcano teamed up to put it out of commission.  For some great photos and stories, visit Thomas C. Utts' site HERE.

A final note:  It's a sad fact that many of the bar girls did prostitute themselves in an effort to climb out of a poverty, and it's equally sad that many of us in our younger, wilder days did nothing to inhibit that activity (hell, we encouraged it, didn't we?).  And because of that many of the Filipinas who once worked in the bars and clubs of Olongapo have been ostracized and treated with utmost rudeness and cruelty, even by (perhaps especially by) their own countrymen.  These jibes usually come from people who have never been in the desperate situation these girls were in.  It's easy to call these poor Filipino girls "whores"  because they traveled to Olongapo or Subic to work in bars and clubs that catered to sailors and Marines.  But I defy anyone who understands Filipino culture to state that these girls traveled hundreds of miles, from as far as the Visayas,  to a place they didn't know, to work in an alien environment full of loud music, strangers, and often chaos, simply because they wanted to screw around. 

In other words, don't ask what they did; ask why they did it. 

The fact is that most of these "whores" now have husbands whom they care for, and children whom they are reading to, driving to school, and tucking into bed each night.  They have regrets and hopes and souls.  They are people, no better and no worse than those who would have them erased from Filipino history.  For all of you who have cursed and maligned these girls, I can only urge you to show understanding, and to let these women go on with their new lives as you go about yours.  There's a Bible story that deals with adultery, but which could apply to any sin, including prostitution (or false witness...):

(John 8: 3-11)  The scholars and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught in adultery and they made her stand in front of him.  "Teacher," they said to him, "this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law, Moses ordered us to throw stones at such a woman until she was dead.  What do you say we should do?"

They asked Jesus this to test him, hoping that his answer would give them something to accuse him of. But Jesus crouched and with his finger wrote in the dust that covered the ground.  Still, they kept asking him what should be done, so eventually he stood up and said, "Anyone among you who is without sin, let him throw the first stone at her."  Then he crouched down again, and again began writing in the dust.

Convicted by their own consciences, each man slowly left, the oldest and wisest leaving first, until not a single accuser remained.  Now there was only the woman, and Jesus.  When they were alone, Jesus stopped writing and stood up.  He looked at her and said, "Woman, where are your accusers?  Didn't anyone condemn you?" 

"No one, my Lord," she said.

"Neither do I condemn you," he said.  "Now, go forth, and sin no more."