Renz Baluyot / "White Elephant" / oil on wood + peep hole, photograph on plexiglass
the nuclear option
Every so often, someone raises the issue of the Aquino administration screwing up our electricity sector by not turning on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Two dates that you need to remember:
1. July 1985 - The BNPP was completed. The plant had passed all the IAEA requirements and was ready to be switched on. The president at that time was Ferdinand Marcos, the person who planned this, built this against all the protests, and earned all the billions in kickbacks from Westinghouse. This was way before he thought of holding the 'snap elections' in November 1985 that would begin the permanent unraveling of his corrupt regime. He did not turn the power plant on.
2. April 1986 - Chernobyl. Now if you were the newly installed president of the country, taking over in February 1986, knowing your predecessor did not turn the power plant on, knowing all of the shady deals between Westinghouse and Disini, would you turn this on? Watch the HBO miniseries on Chernobyl and see the rationality behind the decision in 1986.
The problem is not simply whether the BNPP is safe. The problem is that when Chernobyl exploded, the Soviet Union was able to marshal hundreds of thousands of soldiers, miners, scientists, citizens, helicopters, trucks, vehicles to control catastrophic damage. Seeing how we dealt with the COVID 19 epidemic, it is unimaginable that the Philippine government would be able to cope with the impact of a nuclear meltdown, no matter how remote that possibility is.