MANILA (UCAN): “Our pastoral statement of No to BNPP [Bataan Nuclear Power Plant] rehabilitation stands,” Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, Bataan, the Philippines, told Radyo Veritas on June 3 in response to reports that president-elect, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., plans to start up the plant during his first year in office.
The BNPP, built near a geological fault line, was started in the shadow of the partial meltdown Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in the United States. It was never fuelled or commissioned in 1986 as a result of political upheavals and fears raised by the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Marcos Jr. has been saying that the Philippines should explore alternative sources of energy to support the government’s plan for economic development. “Our vision for the country is to have at least one nuclear power plant so we can finally produce cheap energy,” he told reporters on June 1.
“President Duterte has already laid down a good springboard for the next administration to pursue its nuclear energy objectives,” Marcos Jr. said citing an order signed by Duterte laying the foundations for the next administration to revive the nuclear plant.
The BNPP, built near a geological fault line, was started in the shadow of the partial meltdown Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in the United States. It was never fuelled or commissioned in 1986 as a result of political upheavals and fears raised by the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
However, Bishop Santos said the Diocese of Balanga, where the nuclear power plant is situated, remains opposed to it.
He was reiterating the stance set in 2009 by his predecessor, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who also expressed fears the plant was a danger to the public.
His call was supported by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, which unsuccessfully sought the dismantling of the power plant to stop attempts to revive it.
Bishop Santos claimed Marcos Jr. was likely looking to finish something that his father started.
The bishop proposed that the cost of reviving the plant be used instead for developing safer, cleaner and renewable energy sources.
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“They should focus on renewable energy like wind power in Ilocos Norte province. So, why not promote that?” he said.
Bangui Wind Farm in Marcos Jr.’s political stronghold in the northern Philippines, uses high-powered wind turbines, arranged in a single row stretching along a nine-kilometre shoreline facing the West Philippine Sea. It produces most of the province’s electric supply.
