MANILA, Philippines—A golfing buddy of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Wednesday asked the Sandiganbayan to allow him to defend himself against charges he received $18 million in bribes for the construction of the now mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

In a motion, businessman Herminio Disini asked the anti-graft court to lift the order of default issued against him in 2002 so he could answer the prosecution’s allegations.

Disini blamed the prosecution for his failure to answer the charges on time, saying it gave a wrong address. He said he only learned of the pending case against him in October 2006, 19 years after the original complaints against him were filed in 1987.

Construction of the 620-megawatt nuclear plant began in 1975. It was completed in 1984 at a total cost of $2 billion—four times the original estimate. It never generated a single watt of electricity. Two months after Marcos’ ouster in February 1986, President Corazon Aquino mothballed the plant over safety concerns.

“Justice will not be served if defendant Disini will not be allowed to present evidence or otherwise address plaintiff’s evidence,” said in his motion Wednesday.

The court issued in 2002 an order of default against Disini for failing to offer his defense within the specified period.

He first filed a motion to lift the order of default in December 2006 after learning about the case, but the court rejected the move. The case was deemed submitted for decision after the prosecution completed presentation of evidence last December.

He said that the government gave a wrong address for his summons even though it knew his correct address and those of his relatives in the country, where he made brief visits between 1999 and 2001, and in Austria, where he acquired citizenship in 1982.

He said the government also wanted to prevent him from presenting decisions of international courts which said there was no bribery involved in the nuclear plant contracts.

The International Court of Arbitration and the New Jersey District Court in the United States had decided that there was no bribery involved in the procurement of the contracts for the nuclear plant from the Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the engineering firm Burns and Roe, Disini said.

If the court grants his motion, Disini said he was prepared to prove that he did not receive any bribe for the project.