DINALUPIHAN, BATAAN – From a World War II memorial in Barangay Layac here, four Japanese peace advocates joined more than 100 Filipino cyclists in a 60-km bike tour to Morong town on Monday to add their voices to the campaign against the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

Shigenobu Kodama, Shinji Un-no, Yusuke Akasaka and Ichiro Hirata – all members of the Japan-based Santama Peace Cycle Network – rode their bikes on their way to the BNPP in Morong starting at 8:30 a.m.

In the tour that passed through Dinalupihan, Hermosa, Orani, Samal, Abucay and Pilar towns and Balanga City, public school students waved green flags and leaves to welcome the cyclists.

Members of the Fun Riders Club, Bataan Cycling Club, Orani Cycling Association and Mariveles Cycling Association joined the group along the way.

Balanga stop

The peace cycle, now on its 15th year in Central Luzon, was expected to reach Morong at past 3 p.m. after passing through Bagac town, according to Aurora Broquil of the Nuclear-Free Bataan Movement, this year’s partner of the Santama.

The tour made a brief stop in Balanga City to air appeals to Bataan Rep. Herminia Roman to withdraw her support for the BNPP revival plan, said Msgr. Antonio Dumaual.

In Morong, the cyclists were expected to join the torch parade that would end on Napot Point where the BNPP stands.

Built starting 1973 under the martial rule of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the BNPP was completed in 1983 to the tune of $2.3 billion or five times its original cost.

Former President Corazon Aquino ordered it mothballed in 1986 over safety and corruption issues.

But she did not stop the payment for the loans that were used to build it.

Aquino did not lift the closure order following adverse findings of a study by 50 nuclear experts in 1989, according to Dr. Nicanor Perlas, then a member of the Presidential Commission on the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant.

Hirata said Santama opposes the BNPP revival plan, made through a bill filed by Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco, due to safety issues and because of the disaster wrought by the bombings of the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

“The victims [in Hiroshima and Nagasaki] are still suffering from nuclear radiation. Only six are still alive, sick with tumor and leukemia,” Hirata said.

Nuclear uses

Nuclear energy, he said, can be used as a source of nuclear armaments.
In Japan, where there are some 50 nuclear power plants, Hirata said it is not true that electricity became cheaper.

The high cost of constructing the plants and operating these increased the cost of electricity, he said.

Many Japanese, he said, continue to worry over possible steam explosions, which can emit radiation, from the nuclear power plants.
“If the cooling water stops, [there would be] possible nuke meltdown, which will contaminate marine life, permeate bone, [and damage] also underwater plants,” he said.

The peace cycle, which began on March 6, visited the Malaya Lola, a group of women raped by members of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, and workers in Clark and Subic freeports.