Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. AFP FILE PHOTO
A Catholic bishop from Bataan expressed dismay over President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval of the plan to rehabilitate the mothballed 621-megawatt nuclear power plant in Morong.
“If it is really from the President, we are saddened and disappointed,” Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos was quoted as saying in a report by CBCP News.
READ: Duterte gives nuke plant green light
Santos said the Church is firm in its opposition to any move to revive the nuke plant, which it called “dangerous.”
“May our government officials take into consideration the life and future of our people and environment, neither on profit nor on material convenience,” he said.
Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi earlier said Duterte has given the green light for the $1-billion rehabilitation of the nuclear power plant, a major turnaround from his earlier rejection of using nuclear energy. However, Cusi said the President expressed serious concerns over safety.
READ: Nuke plant rehab entails unbearable cost, green group warns
The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos decided to build the $2-billion plant at the height of the 1973 oil crisis. It was completed and ready for operation in 1984, but never opened after a decade of construction due to safety concerns.
Former President Corazon Aquino mothballed the plant in 1986 in the wake of a nuclear fallout at the Chernobyl power plant in Russia. RAM/rga
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