President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently expressed disappointment that the Philippines never operated the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), the multibillion-dollar project initiated during his father’s administration. During a visit to the Singapore Nuclear Research and Safety Institute, the President said the Philippines had already developed a pool of nuclear experts before the project was abandoned.
“Too bad they stopped it,” he remarked. He also suggested that public attitudes had changed considerably: that Filipinos struggling with expensive electricity now care less about where their power comes from than about making it affordable.
The frustration may be understandable. Filipino households and businesses have long endured electricity costs that undermine family budgets, industrial competitiveness, and economic development. A dependable source of affordable electricity would undoubtedly be welcome.
Mr. Marcos is right to seek cheaper electricity. But reviving a 40-year-old nuclear plant requires more than nostalgia—and considerably more than optimism. It’s a dangerous leap from regretting an unrealized opportunity to concluding that the decision to abandon it was wrong. The BNPP should be judged not by what we wish it had become, but by what it actually was—and what it would take to operate safely today.
Historical fact
The BNPP was conceived during the oil crisis of the 1970s, when countries were seeking alternatives to imported petroleum. It was intended to strengthen Philippine energy security. The objective was legitimate, but serious questions about the project’s design and safety emerged even before it was completed.
On Nov. 13, 1979, President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. issued Letter of Instructions No. 957, acknowledging the findings of a commission he had formed to investigate the nuclear plant. The commission concluded that the facility, as designed, was unsafe and represented a potential hazard to public health and safety. Marcos Sr. consequently directed that construction should not proceed without fundamental design changes and adequate safeguards. He also ordered government officials to examine the project’s objectionable contractual provisions and consider renegotiating its financial obligations.
This historical record deserves attention. Concerns about the BNPP were not invented after the 1986 People Power Revolution; they existed during the administration that commissioned it. That does not prove the plant remained unsafe after subsequent modifications. But it establishes that safety concerns were sufficiently substantive to require official intervention. It also undermines the simplistic narrative that the Philippines merely surrendered a sound nuclear power plant to political opposition.
Not simply about Chernobyl
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster unquestionably intensified public anxiety about nuclear power. But the decision to mothball the BNPP also reflected concerns about its design, construction, location, economics, and the circumstances surrounding its development.
The BNPP was completed in 1984 but never commissioned for commercial electricity generation. President Corazon Aquino’s administration subsequently mothballed it, citing safety and economic considerations.
On hindsight, one can reasonably ask if the government should have explored alternative ways to preserve the investment, develop nuclear expertise, or address the country’s long-term energy requirements. But hindsight is not evidence that operating the plant would have been safe, economical, or beneficial. That conclusion would require information about the plant’s actual condition, the costs of correcting deficiencies, and the regulatory safeguards available at the time. We should resist rewriting a complicated historical decision into a convenient story of squandered opportunity.
The physician’s perspective
As a physician, I find the nuclear debate particularly instructive. In medicine, we routinely weigh the expected benefits of an intervention against its potential harms. A treatment may promise substantial benefits. But before prescribing it, we must ask: Is the patient an appropriate candidate? Has the intervention been adequately tested? Are safer alternatives available?
Nuclear energy requires a similar discipline. Its benefits are real. Nuclear reactors can produce substantial quantities of dependable, low-carbon electricity. They can reduce reliance on fossil fuels and complement renewable energy sources. But their safety depends on engineering integrity, competent operations, effective regulation, emergency preparedness, and long-term management of radioactive waste.
The consequences of a major accident may extend beyond the facility itself, potentially affecting public health, livelihoods, land use, and communities for years.
The medical principle of primum non nocere—first, do no harm—does not mean rejecting every technology carrying risk. It means ensuring that foreseeable risks have been rigorously assessed, minimized, and justified by the expected benefits.
A nuclear power plant cannot be declared safe through political confidence. Its safety must be demonstrated through independent scientific evaluation.
Standards of an earlier generation
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was built around a Westinghouse pressurized-water reactor with an electrical capacity of approximately 620 megawatts. Its design reflects the nuclear engineering standards of an earlier generation. Although the facility has been maintained, it has never been operated commercially.
National Power Corporation has reported that earlier Korean assessments considered rehabilitation technically feasible with an estimated $1 billion to $1.17 billion, and substantial equipment replacement requirements. These findings deserve consideration. They also demonstrate why categorical claims in either direction are premature.
The facility should not automatically be dismissed as technically impossible to rehabilitate. Equally, an earlier estimate cannot establish what rehabilitation would cost under today’s safety standards, financing conditions, and regulatory requirements. Indeed, a recent study published in the Philippine Journal of Science concluded that BNPP rehabilitation could be economically viable under appropriate technical, safety, and legal conditions. That is an important counterpoint. But economic modeling is not a substitute for plant-specific engineering inspections, seismic and volcanic hazard assessments, independent licensing, and a transparent financing plan.
A technically feasible project is not necessarily the best investment. And a financially attractive projection is not necessarily a safe operating facility.
Geography
Bataan’s location introduces another dimension. The Philippines is exposed to earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural hazards. Questions concerning nearby geological structures and volcanic hazards have long featured in debates over the BNPP. These risks must be assessed using contemporary scientific evidence rather than assumptions drawn from either the 1980s or today’s political arguments.
There is also a new consideration: Bataan itself has changed. The province now hosts major power-generation, industrial, petrochemical, and other economically important facilities. Last August, Bataan Gov. Jose Enrique Garcia III argued that the province is no longer an ideal location for a nuclear plant, citing surrounding infrastructure, emergency-planning concerns, and the availability of newer reactor technologies.
Garcia’s position is not, by itself, a definitive technical judgment. But neither should it be dismissed. The potential consequences of a nuclear accident must be evaluated in relation to the communities and critical infrastructure that exist today—not merely those that existed when the site was selected.
Who pays?
Another issue deserves equal attention: Will rehabilitating the BNPP actually reduce electricity bills? Nuclear power can generate electricity reliably for decades, but its economics depend heavily on construction or rehabilitation costs, financing, regulatory compliance, operating performance, and eventual decommissioning. A project that appears inexpensive because its original construction costs are already sunk may still require substantial new investment.
Those historical expenditures are gone regardless of what we decide today. The relevant question is whether the additional money required to rehabilitate and operate the BNPP would produce better value than investing the same resources in alternative energy projects. This is a basic principle of sound economics: Sunk costs should not dictate future decisions.
The comparison must include renewable energy, battery storage, grid modernization, energy efficiency, and other dependable generation technologies. It must also account for nuclear waste management, insurance and liability arrangements, emergency preparedness, decommissioning, and financing risks. These costs should not be obscured by optimistic assumptions or transferred silently to future generations. Filipinos deserve to know the expected cost per kilowatt-hour—and who will absorb the losses if the projections prove wrong.
Future-oriented debate
None of these arguments means the Philippines should reject nuclear power. Quite the contrary. The country should seriously examine whether modern nuclear technology can contribute to a diversified, reliable, and lower-carbon energy system. The Department of Energy is already developing the country’s nuclear infrastructure under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s framework. Its August 2026 progress report identified important remaining work involving regulation, grid readiness, nuclear safety, emergency preparedness, waste management, and workforce development.
The government is also examining potential sites and cooperating with South Korea on a feasibility study involving the BNPP. These are constructive steps. They recognize that nuclear power is not simply a matter of purchasing a reactor. It requires an entire ecosystem of scientific competence, regulatory independence, institutional integrity, and public trust.
Modern reactor designs, including small modular reactors, may offer additional options, although their economic competitiveness and operational performance must also be demonstrated, not assumed. The Philippines should compare technologies objectively. Our energy future should not be held hostage to either nostalgia for an old nuclear plant or ideological opposition to nuclear energy itself.
Five essential conditions
Experts say that before committing public funds to rehabilitate the BNPP, the government should establish five essential conditions.
First, an independent international engineering assessment must determine the actual condition of the BNPP, containment structures, electrical systems, and other safety-critical components.
Second, updated seismic, volcanic, flooding, and external-hazard assessments must establish if the site meets contemporary safety requirements.
Third, a transparent economic analysis must compare rehabilitation with realistic alternatives, including full lifecycle costs and the possible financial burden on consumers and taxpayers.
Fourth, an independent nuclear regulator must demonstrate the authority, technical capability, and institutional independence necessary to enforce safety standards—even when its conclusions are politically inconvenient.
Finally, affected communities must participate meaningfully in the decision, with credible emergency preparedness, evacuation planning, and long-term environmental safeguards.
These are not obstacles invented to prevent nuclear development. They are prerequisites for responsible nuclear development. And the government must be prepared to accept the possibility that an objective assessment could conclude that rehabilitation is not the best option.
We cannot afford another costly mistake.
The President is correct about one thing: The Philippines urgently needs affordable, dependable electricity. That challenge should unite, not divide, us. But affordable electricity is not achieved simply by bringing an old facility back to life. And the fact that billions of dollars were spent decades ago does not obligate us to spend billions more. The decision must rest on present-day science, engineering, economics, and public safety.
There is a lesson here extending well beyond nuclear energy. Nations sometimes become so attached to recovering past investments that they fail to examine whether those investments still make sense.
In medicine, we call a similar tendency therapeutic persistence: continuing an intervention because so much has been invested in it, rather than reassessing its appropriateness. Good medicine requires the courage to discontinue a treatment when its risks outweigh its benefits. Good governance requires the same courage.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant deserves an honest, independent assessment—not automatic rehabilitation and not automatic rejection. If contemporary evidence establishes that it can meet the highest safety standards and deliver electricity competitively, that evidence should inform the decision. If it cannot, the country should move forward without treating the abandonment of the plant as a historical injustice that must somehow be corrected.
The real tragedy would not be that the Philippines failed to operate the BNPP 40 years ago. It would be allowing regret over yesterday’s decisions to compromise the safety, economic welfare, and energy security of tomorrow’s Filipinos. CS
Dr. Rafael R. Castillo is a cardiologist, educator, and public health advocate. He was president of the Philippine Heart Association (PHA) and the Asian Pacific Society of Hypertension, and was a longtime health columnist of the Inquirer. He has over 45 awards to his name, including the PHA Lifetime Achievement Award, and continues to champion preventive cardiology and public health reforms here and abroad.
