Smut Club Signage

Hotzone: fire and brimstone and women in teal two piece ensembles.

In celebration of my moving into the periphery of a red light district, I bring you some images of Subic Bay's girlie bars. Born out of the testosterone glut that was a US naval base, the skin trade in the area lives on. The whole Subic area really depresses the daylights out of me, but this particular stretch of the national highway makes me feel like I'm in some novel written in the 90s. The neon, thelarge painted signs, the chunky old Caucasians in Hawaiian shirts, the crackhead parking boys and rugby-sniffing apprentices. And the girls, some of them underage, who can only imagine the glory days of the district, when the customers were strapping young American soldiers, not overweight pasty men spending their pensions in the tropics.

Many clubs rely on word-of-mouth (and lately, websites), but exclamatory mural work helps to differentiate and state the concept of the establishment. Most of the painting is designed to be seen during the night, with light-colored letters against dark backgrounds.

Angels for Sale

"Guest Relations Officers", the driest euphemism.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the area is the resignation of the local government to the fact that women are its main product.

Great tourism strategy, Olongapo.

The Sad Museum

Legend has it that Olongapo is named after the phrase ulo ng apo, or head of a wise elder.

Gore, fear, and injustice pepper the history of Olongapo City (or so its museum tells us), from the time it was named (after a severed head). Centuries later, while the rest of the Philippines has some bitterness about the US occupation and bases, the people of Subic and Olongapo are nostalgic about the dollars and resentful that the Americans were voted out of our islands.


Sadness at the Spanish arrival.


Running from the war planes.


An American soldier.


An angry logger trying to further cut a stump.

Discount Hell

Someone painted the stars the wrong way, originally.

There is something a little tragic about Subic and Olongapo, former US Naval home in the Orient. Sterile lodging a la middle-of-nowhere California, sprawling roads, proper driving, short shorts, neon, large industrial compounds, and the desolation of a former boom town. The guide talks fondly about "the former this-and-that" and what once was.


And stripes.

Foremost in sadness are the "duty free" stores, which still carry all forms of Amerikano rubbish like corn syrup-sweetened chocolate, bad shampoo, nylon socks, Nair, and LA Gear or something. However, the last decade has seen the entry of just about every product into the market, and PX stores have gone the way of hairspray and benders. Slowly, domestic tourists stopped trekking to Subic for their fill of Poppycock. One of their strongest unique selling propositions to the outside world (especially the big spenders of Manila) was lost.


Always full.

Inside a Subic discount store, prices are symbolically written in dollars, but everyone pays in peso. The non-competitive nature of American prices now requires the use of shelf space by products from China and everywhere else. White lights, dollar-store cheese-- enough to make me step outside and hang around the shawarma vendor. It depresses the Hesukristo out of me when I'm in some sprawling US town, but infinitely more when I'm in my own country.


Ya, it makes me pretty sad too.

As our long binge on American colonialism fades, the regular Filipino's ideas of luxury and affluence will change, probably last in this place. Hopefully, some sense will creep back into Subic and Olongapo, and the place will become alive again. The revolution will not come from the halls of gyrating girls and their song-and-dance numbers. As Filipino demand reflects in the changing inventory of former discount stores, domestic tourists and inhabitants who want more than just the shadow of an occupation will hopefully reclaim this beautiful coastal mass.


Watch repair, encouraging informal economy signal.