Nuclear Power in the Philippines: The Plague that Poisons Morong!

In 1977 construction began on the first nuclear reactor in the Phillipines, part of an ambitious development program initiated by the Marcos dictatorship. As well as aiding the growth of industry, this program was to bring electricity to the urban and rural poor. Walden Bello, John Harris, and Lyuba Zarsky show convincingly that this "trickle-down" effect has not occurred, nor will it occur under existing social conditions, where much of the electricity produced supports export-led industrialization and personal consumption by a local elite. Yet electrification has helped legitimate the Marcos regime, it has forged an alliance with technocrats and bureaucrats, and has helped to fight counterinsurgency.Why did Marcos choose nuclear power, rather than fossil fuels? The authors argue that the main determinant was U. S. influence, though other factors entered, such as enhancing the regimes prestige by.achieving "modernity. " Yet the Westinghouse reactor has been a thorn in Marcos' side. Plagued with exposures of corruption and financial waste and the discovery that it is built on active earthquake faults, it has become a unifying symbol for opposition to the regime.