Filed Under: Disasters (general), Government
FROM MY active files I just pulled out the booklet “The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant: A monument to man’s folly” subtitled “Pride and refusal to admit mistakes” by distinguished statesman, nationalist and former Sen. Lorenzo M. Tañada. The foreword was written by Jose W. Diokno, also a great nationalist and former senator.
The reason I pulled out the booklet: the magnitude 9 earthquake that rocked Japan on March 11 and the killer tsunami that roared through its coasts and killed thousands while the world watched it unfold in almost real time on TV. Following these unprecedented disasters of apocalyptic scale is a series of nuclear breakdowns which those of us living in the Pacific rim hope would not surpass in magnitude the nuclear disasters in Three-Mile Island in the US (1979) and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union (1986).
The Tañada booklet I have kept these last 28 years moved to my active files last year during the election campaign when presidential candidates were asked about their stand on reviving the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). There was this Green Electoral Initiatives survey of the presidential candidates’ position on environmental issues initiated by Greenpeace and to which I was invited to be one of the jurors. The booklet served as a reference. It contains annexes, such as some proceedings of the investigation conducted by the Puno Commission (from which Tañada and human rights lawyer, now Senator, Joker Arroyo would walk out). It also has the transcript of Tañada’s grilling of a representative of Westinghouse, the builder of BNPP.“A monument to man’s folly” was a speech Tañada delivered in 1983 before an audience of human rights advocates and later published by anti-nuke groups. This was one of the references I used when I wrote a rather long magazine article on the BNPP (“The Nuclear Plant is Almost Complete, But Questions Still Beg for Answers,” Panorama, April 28, 1985). I went over it a while ago and I thought what I wrote then could still apply today. The magazine, a collector’s item I must say, is 64 pages thick and is almost entirely dedicated to the pros and cons of the nuke issue. On the cover is Peta’s rock musical “Nukleyar.”
I had gone to the BNPP and had seen for myself the innards of the plant which was supposed to be 99 percent finished at that time (1985) and which had cost some $2 billion, with interest piling. The issue then was not just about safety, it was also about the economics of it and the questionable money trail. I vividly remember interviewing one of BNPP’s opponents Alberto Romulo (the foreign secretary until recently) on a sweltering Holy Wednesday. He explained to me the staggering cost operating BNPP would entail. The project was tied up with an onerous financial deal which involved a Marcos crony.
Tañada’s anti-nuke speech was not all rhetoric. It was well researched, based on facts and cited the Puno Commission’s findings: that the plant was not safe, that is was on old design plagued with unresolved safety issues, that safety was not assured, and that the crucial problem of nuclear waste disposal had not been resolved. Despite these, the suspension of construction was lifted in 1980.
Now I shudder to think of the BNPP’s revival as pushed by some lawmakers, given the massive plunder and corruption in government that were recently brought to light. (After the Japan tragedy, the main proponent in Congress of the BNPP revival shelved her measure.)
Tañada had tried to obtain the revised contract with Westinghouse from then Ministers Cesar Virata and Geronimo Velasco but was told that “the contract is confidential.” Raged Tañada: “I was astonished why a contract regarding an obviously vital and public matter and involving billions of the people’s money should be shrouded in secrecy, but that was the answer.” See now the importance of passing the Freedom of Information Act?
Recalled Tañada: “The only possible explanation could be found in the last paragraph of the Puno Commission’s Report, where (it) said that ‘it is to the best interest of our country and people that the project may continue only if Westinghouse agrees to renegotiate its contract with the National Power Corporation… to remedy the iniquitous and onerous stipulations of the contract, provide reasonable assurance of the safety…, assure supply of uranium fuels and allay the fears of the people about its possible hazards.’”
It was a long battle Tañada thought he was losing, but the people power revolt in 1986 that toppled the Marcos dictatorship would cause the BNPP to be mothballed but the people’s money that continued to go down the drain because of it was another story.
Tañada warned: “Mr. Marcos and his nuclear advisers may well be long remembered for having put up the most expensive and dangerous nuclear power plant in the world, thereby saddling present and future generations of Filipinos with enormous foreign loans, and what is worse, endangering the people’s health and safety. And God forbid, if a serious accident happens and thousands of Filipinos die and the fertile fields of Bataan and neighboring provinces are rendered uninhabitable because of radioactivity, they will also be remembered…
“And the massive ruins of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant on the slopes of Mt. Natib may well stand as a grim memorial of their betrayal of our people.”
The Armageddon-like tragedy in Japan is an eschatological warning to the world.
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