Marcos revives push for nuclear energy program

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., in his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona), bared the possibility of revisiting nuclear energy development to reinforce the country's energy security and reduce rising electricity costs.
File photo of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. (AFP)

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., in his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona), pushed for revisiting nuclear energy production to reinforce the country’s energy security and reduce rising electricity costs.

Marcos said this after touting gains in petroleum service contracts, as well as hydrogen power plants.

“To push the envelope further, perhaps it is time for us to revisit nuclear energy production. We are already using nuclear energy in the fields of medicine, agriculture, water filtration, and the upcycling of plastic,” Marcos said.

“We are confident in its capacity to reinforce our energy security and bring down the cost of electricity in our country,” he added.

He vowed that the government would ensure that the implementation of nuclear power would be safe and that its benefits would be well explained to the public. /gsg /atm