Congressman seeks revival of nuclear plant

Manila: A Congressman said he is optimistic that his colleagues this year will pass a Bill he filed in 2008 for the revival of a mothballed 24-year old nuclear plant in central Luzon.

About 162 of the more than 200 members of the House of Representatives have offered to co-author the proposed Bill filed for the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, Bataan, which was never used after its completion in 1984, said Congressman Mark Cojuangco.

The Filipino people will be "easily convinced" about the importance of the 600-megawatt nuclear plant, said Cojuangco, who said that his 75 per cent of support from the lower house of Congress is a sign that majority of people will agree with his proposed plan.

Rehabilitation costs

"It is fully paid for, but it has never generated a single watt of power. It should start operating by 2010, to make the Philippines at par with member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)," argued Cojuangco, adding that a refurbishment plan will not be very expensive.

Some sources mentioned $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) for BNPP's rehabilitation plan.

Cojuangco's aunt, former President Corazon Aquino, cited 4,000 reasons why she had ordered the plant to be moth-balled in 1986.

At the time, fear to operate Bataan's nuclear plant was triggered by the Three Mile Island accident in the United States and the nuclear disaster of the Chernobyl Power Plant in the former Soviet Union.

President Aquino had also pushed for the payment of billions of pesos for principal and interest for the $2.2 billion plant since she became president, following the ouster of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos by a people-backed military coup in 1986.

Aquino and the other presidents who followed after her were criticised for honouring the debt, because it was funded with a loan from the US Export-Import Bank.

In 2006, $50-million was allocated in the 2007 budget for the final payment of the country's foreign debt which was incurred for the moth-balled project.

Activists still complain that the nuclear plant is a reminder of the Marcos plunder.