RICHARD GORDON IN PERSPECTIVE

RICHARD GORDON IN PERSPECTIVE

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

(Author”s Note: I almost forgot that I bought a great book ten years ago. While browsing this book this morning, I found a chapter devoted to Richard Gordon, the autocratic ruler of the port city of Olongapo, some 130 kilometers north of Manila. Olongapo City hosted a part of the Subic Naval Base. The bigger part of this former U.S. military facility turned free port and industrial zone lies in the province of Bataan. This article is about Gordon, his family, and his style of governance.)

CHAPTER Five of Donald Kirk’s book,”Philippines In Crisis: U.S. Power Versus Local Revolt,” is aptly titled “Free Port or Hacienda?” It virtually shows the uniqueness of how Subic Free Port was then managed by Richard Gordon, the roly poly autocratic Olongapo City mayor, whom President Fidel Ramos named as chair of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SMBA) even before the 1992 expiration of the U.S. Military Bases Agreement. The SBMA is the state agency tasked to develop and transform the former Subic Naval Base, a U.S. military facility, into a modern-day free port and industrial zone.

The chapter title shows that although Subic Naval Base was undergoing transformation into a modern free port after 1992, it was being managed like an hacienda, where a cacique (feudal landlord) in Gordon reigned supreme. Incidentally, hacienda is the Spanish term for those vast tracts of farmlands that typified a feudal estate.

Donald Dirk, a veteran roving American correspondent, took off from the November 24, 1992 scene when Richard Gordon, nicknamed Dick, as the newly appointed SBMA chair, and wife Katherine, or Kate, as the Olongapo City mayor, attended the ceremony, where U.S. base authorities formally turned over the Subic Naval Base to the Philippine government.

Dirk, who interviewed a lot of people for the specific chapter, including the Gordons, mentioned casually how the Gordons immediately took what he described “a  self righteous campaign to rid the town of the sleaze and scum associated with the American era.” The Gordons got their inspectors to close down those roaring bars outside the main gate along Magsaysay Street. Dirk also said:

“They ordered their minions to harass the aging Americans Australians, and other foreigners still running bars along several miles of roads running around the bay in Barrio Barreto, a beachfront strip envisioned as a luxury resort area for rich and powerful investors lured into both the base and the town.”

According to Dirk, the first Gordon to have arrived in Olongapo City was John Jacob Gordon, the offspring of Russian Jewish parents, who settled in Kingston, New York. He was a member of  U.S Marines, who joined Admiral George Dewey’s fleet, which defeated the Spanish fleet in the mocked Battle of Manila Bay. He first settled in Sangley Bay in Cavite, but moved to Olongapo, then a fishing village. It was soon developed by the Americans to host the naval base.

Dirk said first Gordon married a local beauty and had four sons, three of which survived but they all migrated to the States. He remarried Veronica Tagle, a Spanish mestizo, and bore him a son, James Gordon, Richard’s father. John Jacob operated “Gordon’s Farm,” a saloon frequented by American servicemen for its good food, booze, and women. But it was James the son, who prospered as he put up a hotel and cabaret, movie theater, radio station and a popular restaurant. 

Just like his father, James enriched himself from the American servicemen’s patronage. James married Amelia Juico, who belonged to a landed family. They have five kids: Richard, three daughters, and James Jr. 

Dirk said about the Gordons: “The Gordon name remains a constant in the evolution of Olongapo, at every stage reflecting and refracting the history of a community that sees itself at the end of the twentieth century as epitomizing the Philippines’ economic revolution.   The family – not merely Dick Gordon but also his forebears, along with a complex web of in-laws and other relatives – has strived, ever since the original John Jacob Gordon set up his saloon on the fringes of the American military holdings, to work with the Americans even while asserting independence form them.”

According to Gordon, mother Amelia did not like Richard’s choice of a bride and this had caused animosity in the family. Richard had to assert his independence, as he defended his marriage to Katherine Howell, an illegitimate daughter of an American serviceman by a local beauty, who and managed and operated a nightclub that featured bikini-clad dancing women and hostesses. Although Richard prevailed over her mother, the two women were described as “hostile toward each other, often on nonspeaking terms for years.”

James Gordon was elected mayor of Olongapo City in 1963, but because of what Dirk described as a result of “cutthroat politics and payoffs,” he was assassinated on February 20, 1967. Richard was too young during those days. Hence, mother Amelia took over the city’s top political post. 

Richard Gordon’s first entry in politics was in 1970, when he was elected delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention that drafted the new constitution to replace the 1935 Constitution, which was then described as colonial because it was written under the American colonial rule.

Richard was elected mayor of Olongapo City in 1980, but he allied himself with dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a political career marked by opportunism, according to Dirk. He saw his future with Marcos. But he got the shock of his life when Marcos was deposed in 1986 and Cory Aquino took over. Gordon was among those replaced by the Cory Aquino government. He confessed to have nightmares from that episode, Dirk said.

He regained power in 1988 when he won as mayor, even as he remained hostile to Cory Aquino. He supported Danding Cojuangco in the 1992 elections, but found himself in a tight fix when Fidel Ramos, or FVR, won. He nevertheless switched sides, as he delivered speeches that flattered FVR. Soon, FVR named him as SBMC chair to preside over Subic Naval base’s transformation into a modern free port and industrial zone.

According to Dirk, Richard Gordon went into a PR binge that sought to project Subic as the new growth center of Asia, even likening it to the new Hong Kong. The American author mentioned Gordon’s launch of the much ballyhooed volunteer program as sort of what Gordon described a “social experiment.” Dirk said:

“There was however no real ‘social experiment.’ The reality was that Gordon, for all the wealth already accumulated by him and his wife, each related by blood and marriage to still more wealth, did not want to pay from his pocket the paltry salaries he might offer the large unemployed labor force suddenly made available by the Americans’ departure. His grip on the levers of local government and his political resources enabled him to compel thousands to volunteer on the promise that some day, if they did well and the base prospered in its reincarnation as a free port and industrial zone , they would all be paid paying jobs.

“Gordon’s volunteer program was a powerful lure. In the first months, college graduates, with some of them with degrees from prestigious universities, joined laid off clerks and typists, grass cutters and weed pullers in working for nothing. The college graduates and office workers – those with connections and loyalty – were assured of paying jobs within a year or so.

“Political loyalty, not professional qualifications, was the litmus test. No one associated with the political opposition had a chance. The Gordons’ intelligence system was pervasive. There were stories of dismissals of who who got into the payroll – and then were reported to be of dubious loyalty. Volunteers identified with the foes were either frustrated in getting regular jobs or were dropped altogether from what they were doing.”

In brief, the volunteer program was a failure. But it did not stop Gordon from pitching high notes about Subic’s potential as a free port and industrial zone. He minced plenty of words for Subic as a potential destination of foreign investments that would move out of Hong Kong, when the British government turned over its former colony to China in 1997. There were comparisons during those days, Dirk said.

But, as it turned out, all those posturings were empty boasts. Dirk said: “Businessmen also had their complaints. Japanese bankers in Manila were reluctant to invest heavily in a free port “when the future is so insecure.” Shippers said the port was charging so much and were reluctant to put for short visits – or even minor repairs. Investors had horror stories tales of encounter with young and inexperienced bureaucrats that Gordon put together, many from among his following of friends and hangers-on. The chairman, it was said, was too often out politicking or partying with friends.”

Dirk also mentioned Gordon’s “passion for control.” He made all final decisions and nothing got in without his approval. No wonder, the SBMA has yet to actualize its much ballyhooed potentials as a free port and industrial zone.