SENATE President Juan Ponce Enrile on Friday renewed his call for the operation of a nuclear power plant to wean away the country from dependence on expensive fossil fuels.
Enrile reiterated his preference for nuclear energy after the Department of Trade and Industry said that some investors in power generation would be coming in, with coal as the fuel, to help ease the projected power shortage in the country.
He said that coal is expensive and damaging to the environment, and Enrile proposed that the government look into the operation of a nuclear power plant, not necessarily that in Bataan.
“We can build the nuclear power plant in a place that is safer than Bataan, like in my province, Cagayan,” Enrile added.
He questioned why there should still be questions about safety in the operation of a nuclear power plant, noting that there is an increasing number of countries that are going nuclear.
Sen. Edgardo Angara also had expressed openness to the building of a new nuclear power plant.
Angara, the co-chairman of the joint Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering, acknowledged that the issue of nuclear energy still raises a lot of passion in the country, because of the experience in the overpriced and unsafe Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in Morong, Bataan.
The Morong plant has been mothballed since the time of late President Corazon Aquino although the Philippines went on to pay for its cost in full.
“The Bataan plant is already outdated. It was built on obsolete technology. I don’t think our nuclear power plant should be like it,” Angara said.
He added that he could not see the immediate construction of a nuclear power plant, and pointed out that the Philippines does not even have a nuclear physicist.
Recently, President Benigno Aquino 3rd announced plans to privatize the mothballed nuclear power plant in Bataan.
During the 2010 campaign for the presidency, his running mate, former Sen. Manuel Roxas 2nd, also declared his support for a nuclear power plant. –Efren L. Danao Senior Reporter, Manila Times
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar
to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations
against serious violations of Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
#WearMask #WashHands
#Distancing
#TakePicturesVideos
