Olongapo City and the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in the Philippines
Written on Apr 18, 2026
I live in the Santa Rita barangay (village) in Olongapo City. I've lived there since April 2006, although my house wasn't finished being built until November of that year. The picture was taken in Santa Rita while looking at Subic Bay.
My wife, Josie, and I are visiting my older son and his family in Surprise, Arizona until sometime at the end of April or the beginning of May. A family friend is with us because she's undergoing treatment for health issues.
Olongapo City
I met Josie in Olongapo City in 1983 while I was on a Western Pacific deployment with the military, with the ship docked at the Subic Bay Naval Base. We married in Yuma, Arizona in 1985. Josie and I returned to the Philippines many times before moving back.
Our younger son was baptized in Olongapo City in 1986. Josie was there from 1987 to 1988 while I was stationed on Okinawa. Although she returned multiple times in the 1990s, I didn't return again until my father-in-law died in 2003.
Subic Bay Freeport Zone
The Subic Bay Freeport Zone is part of the Subic Special Economic and Freeport Zone. It's the southwestern portion, separated from Olongapo City by a drainage canal on the north side and a river on the west side.
There are hotels and restaurants at the freeport zone, many of them catering to Americans and Europeans. Although American franchise restaurants exist at the freeport zone as well as in Olongapo City, I rarely eat at any of them.
Although Josie and I have stayed at hotels while visiting relatives in other provinces, we have yet to stay at a local hotel. The only reason we stayed at hotels at all is because our hosts didn't have sufficient space for us to sleep.
Future Plans
If our children have their way, Josie and I would soon move back to the United States permanently. Our older son wants us to live with his family when they move to a permanent home. Our younger son and his family will be moving to metro Phoenix sometime this year.
I'm very comfortable living in the Philippines, surrounded by Josie's siblings, nieces, and nephews. While I would like that to remain our situation forever, I realize that we will both have to eventually move in with one child's family or the other.
We're both senior citizens already, and things like health care would be much better for us in the United States.
Image by Patrickroque01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons