WHAT came about after the abolition of the Marcos-created Ministry of Energy was another presidential boo-boo: the abandonment of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant Project. This nuclear plant was designed to provide cheap electricity for the country.
Evidently, President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino’s decision to scrap the nuclear plant was more emotional rather than rational. Her decision totally ignored important details and that she was influenced by her suspicion that the nuclear plant was grossly overpriced and unsafe.
Some also believed that she was affected by her well-known aversion to anything “Marcosian.” Of course, everybody knew that the nuclear plant was a pet project of the Marcos regime. Others pointed to the pressure from powerful players in the nuclear plant on their electric power businesses.
Another reason offered to explain her action was the danger of radiation leak should a strong earthquake hit the vicinity of the plant. As things turned out, the fear was unjustified.
The Bataan nuclear plant was patterned after the Krisko nuclear power plant in Yugoslavia. The same design was also followed in the Korei nuclear power plants 1 and 2 of South Korea. The Yugoslavian and the South Korean plants have had no operational problems ever.
The Bataan nuclear plant was scheduled to go into commercial operation in November 1983. This was deferred to 1986 so that additional work could be done to ensure the maximum safety of the plant. This deferment was an offshoot of the accidents in the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States and in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia. In the end, the commercial operation of the Bataan nuclear plant never materialized.
As if by design, nature itself disproved the possibility of radiation leak. A very strong earthquake occurred in central and northern Luzon in 1990. Mountain slopes crumbled; buildings, roads and bridges collapsed; and parts of the coastal cities of Dagupan in Pangasinan and San Fernando in La Union sunk. Even Mount Pinatubo, standing a few miles from the nuclear plant, violently erupted. And yet the nuclear plant stood with no damage.
Obviously, President Aquino was hopelessly misled. She decided a major and highly technical policy issue on the advice of persons with cursory knowledge of the facts.
Clearly, she was unaware that the nuclear reactor of the Bataan Nuclear plant was so designed and constructed to withstand the crashing impact of a 747 jumbo jet at full speed.
Surely the decision to abandon the nuclear plant has contributed greatly to the present high cost of electricity in the country. Instead of producing cheap electricity for the people, the nuclear plant has become “the most expensive white elephant project in Philippine history.” It has cost our electric consumers over $2 billion, and the people are still paying millions of dollars to service the foreign debt incurred to build the Bataan nuclear plant, which now sits idle not far from another multibillion-peso white elephant: the Centennial complex built on the order of President Fidel V. Ramos.
Midway in her administration, the country’s power supply deteriorated progressively until it worsened. Everybody suffered and complained because of long power brownouts. The public was angry. Business was badly hurt. Those who could afford had to incur additional cost to buy their own generators.
She panicked. And to her great embarrassment, she was compelled to resurrect the Ministry of Energy. She had to because the people were angry and restive. But it was too late. The damage was done.
In her desire to control the full-blown energy crisis and to placate the people, she thoughtlessly issued Executive Order 215. This executive order authorized private parties to own power-generating plants and to sell electricity to distribution utility companies in direct competition with the NPC.
By the stroke of her pen, she wittingly or unwittingly removed the control of the NPC over the generation and supply of electric power, which was so essential and effective in maintaining a calibrated balance between the demand for and supply of electricity in the country.
“President Aquino, it would seem,” said Juan Ponce Enrile, now running for the Senate under the Pwersa ng Masa, “was never really familiar with the power industry, let alone with the policies involved. Otherwise, she would not have recklessly issued Executive Order No. 215, which brought the injurious and much-hated Purchased Power Adjustment or PPA into the country.”
In spite of Executive Order No. 215 and the influx of independent power producers, long hours of power brownouts, lasting from 12 to 15 hours a day, went on.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.