FORMER Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco, who has been pushing for the reopening of the mothballed nuclear power plant in Bataan, has shifted gear and wants to know what influenced President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to keep the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant closed for the remainder of his term.
“I want to know why he changed his mind about reopening the nuclear power plant,” Cojuangco told a weekend forum.
The Department of Energy said the government needs to get the people’s approval before the controversial Bataan Nuclear Power Plant could be opened.
“So with the directives of the Secretary [Alfonso Cusi], there is no clear direction on reopening the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. It has to be subjected or submitted to national consensus,” Energy Undersecretary Donato Marcos told congressmen during the agency’s budget hearing two months ago.
Marcos said this was the agreement among the member-countries of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation Conference, which the Philippines hosted from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at the Diamond Hotel in Manila City.
Cojuangco, who has been pushing for the reopening of the abandoned nuclear power plant for years, said Duterte’s abrupt turnaround confused him as he was open to its use during the campaign period.
Duterte told a forum on a local television channel in February that all sources of power, including nuclear power, must be considered to address the country’s power concerns.
Then President Ferdinand Marcos’ administration saw the creation of the plant following the oil shocks in the 1970s.
But after Marcos was toppled during the so-called 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, his successor President Corazon Aquino transferred the nuclear plant’s assets to the government without operating it.
Activists and environmentalists were concerned the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was constructed too close to earthquake fault lines as well as an active volcano.
In December 2015, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said his agency was ready to assist the Philippines should it decide to revive the BNPP.
“If you decide (to reopen it) we are ready to help,” Amano said.
But the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog clarified that making a decision would be up to the Philippine government.
Amano was in the country to attend the 3rd Nuclear Congress, a multi-sectoral meeting assessing the progress made by the Philippines in using nuclear energy, along with the challenges in harnessing it.
For every year the matter sits in indecision alley, the government is spending P50 million ($1.06 million) to maintain the mothballed plant.
Such has been the case since, in 2007, the Philippines completed the payment of the $2.3-billion debt that had been used to fund the BNPP’s construction between 1976 and 1984.