CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Fully paid last April and still a white elephant since work on it started some 32 years ago, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, Bataan may yet serve some purpose.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) here has officially identified the BNPP as a tourist attraction to “serve as a single reminder of how nuclear energy throughout the world menacingly threatens the quality of life of the people is handled incorrectly.”
“The core of the tour package is a close-up view of the huge reactor where the uranium is supposed to be locked in place – the same perilous substance that crippled the entire community of Fukushima, Japan and caused billions of dollars in decontamination and health care costs,” said DOT regional director Ronaldo Tiotuico.
He noted that the move is supported by Bataan Rep. Hermina Roman.
“She (Rep. Roman) expressed her keen interest to make this part of the province a major tourist destination following the nuclear incident in Japan,” Tiotuico noted.
“Hopefully, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant would serve to warn the global community of the fallout disaster that struck people in the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima,” he said.
Tiotuico said the plant is also now being regarded for “potential tour product development and packaging by a growing number of tour operators” in Central Luzon.
He said that for the DOT, the BNPP is now part of the tour package for tourists visiting Bataan, alongside other historical and leisure attractions in the province which is also known for its beach resorts.
Earlier, Mauro Marcelo, manager of the asset preservation of the Department of Energy, said the BNPP is basically still intact, including the reactor.
Filemon Condino, head of the fiscal planning and assessment division of the Bureau of Treasury, announced earlier that last April, the Philippine government finally paid off the Bataan nuclear power plant almost 32 years after work began on it. The final payment of $15 million was settled in April, he said.
The BNPP was initiated by former president Marcos and has cost the government about P21.2 billion for a debt that cost only P1.06 billion.
Construction began in 1976 and was completed in 1984 at a cost of $2.3 billion, but it never became operational.
Energy Secretary Raphel Lotilla was quoted to have said that it would be far more expensive to rehabilitate the plant than to build a new one.
“Apart from being developed as a monument to folly or a tourist attraction, the property is now under the Asset Privatisation Trust,” he said.
