Joe Torres Jr.
MANILA (LiCAS News): Greenpeace Philippines warned that the outgoing administration of president, Rodrigo Duterte, “may be railroading more nuclear decisions through ‘midnight’ deals … potentially leaving Filipinos locked into onerous agreements.”
The alert came after the government signed a memorandum of understanding [MOU] with the United States on March 10, following the release of Duterte’s Executive Order 164 in February, which seeks to resuscitate the country’s nuclear power programme.
The MOU was reportedly signed to boost cooperation on developing the nuclear energy programme.
The MOU on Strategic Civil Nuclear Cooperation was signed by Philippine Energy undersecretary, Gerardo Erguiza Jr. and US undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security, Bonnie Jenkins.
“The Duterte administration, which has long been peddling nuclear power, now appears to be in a frenzy to close as many nuclear deals as possible before its term ends,” said Greenpeace campaigner Khevin Yu.
“Something very fishy is going on, and the Filipino people will end up paying for the consequences for all these questionable decisions,” said Yu in a statement released on March 14.
Duterte initially rejected nuclear power in 2016, but shortly after did a complete turnaround. Under his administration, the Department of Energy, under Alfonso Cusi, became one of the biggest promoters of the use of nuclear energy in the country, signing deals with Russia, Korea and, recently, the United States.
In its statement, Greenpeace maintains that nuclear power is “the most expensive, most dangerous, and dirtiest form of electricity.”
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They know very well the real situation and condition of [the nuclear plant],’ said Bishop Santos. ‘It is sitting on a dormant volcano
Bishop Santos
It pointed out, “Costs for nuclear power do not only include capital costs and operations, but also handling and storage of radioactive nuclear waste, as well as costs for dismantling and decommissioning.”
On March 13, Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga in Bataan province, where the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant [BNPP] was built, expressed his opposition to proposals to rehabilitate the plant [Sunday Examiner, March 13].
“They know very well the real situation and condition of [the nuclear plant],” said Bishop Santos. “It is sitting on a dormant volcano,” he pointed out on Radio Veritas 846.
“Our future, or our future on energy, is not on BNPP. It is danger and destruction,” he added.
“It is dead issue here. No one is talking about its rehabilitation nor any political candidate here campaigns for opening/study of the Bataan nuclear power plant,’ Bishop Santos said.
The bishop said that the nuclear power plant “will never produce added electricity and the cost of rehabilitation will only be ways and means for graft and corruption as its construction is founded on greed.”
In 2018, Bishop Santos said the issue of reviving of the mothballed BNPP should be put to “eternal rest.”
He said that reviving the BNPP is a waste of money as it will not be beneficial to the country, adding that it is “not functional, defective, and dangerous.”
Built during the martial law years, the 620-megawatt BNPP in Morong, Bataan, was never activated following the Chernobyl disaster in Russia in 1986.
