The Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Laboring Masses, PLM) expresses its deepest concern and sends its condolences to all the families and victims of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the North-Eastern coast of Japan last Friday. Our thoughts are also with all our Japanese friends and comrades and we pledge our solidarity and support to them in these dark hours.
We also join Filipinos here and abroad who, up to now, wait for official news from the Philippine Government as to the real situation of our Kababayans who were affected by the earthquake and tsunami. We call on the Government to put their contingency plans in motion without losing precious time, which is crucial, when disasters such as these strike. The Government should get its act together to ensure that vital information and other services needed by the victims and their families are given in a prompt and efficient manner.
No to Nuclear Power
The horrors of the devastation wrecked by the earthquake and tsunami have been intensified by the dangerous state of meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear reactor. The accident, in which unspecified quantities of radioactivity were released, highlights the grave inherent hazards of nuclear power generation, and confirms the scientific assessment that all nuclear reactor-types can undergo a catastrophic accident like Three Mile Island (US, 1979) and Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986), irrespective of the precautions taken and safety systems installed. An estimated 65,000 to 110,000 people perished in Chernobyl. The toll from Fukushima is as yet unknown, but is likely to be high.
The nuclear accident in Fukushima, once again sends out a strong message to the world, that nuclear energy projects should be abandoned and that all existing nuclear power plants around the world should be shut down. Nuclear energy is neither ‘clean’ nor ‘safe’ and is not a substitute for non-renewable energy sources, such as fossil fuels.
No to Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
The Philippines, like Japan, lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire where 90% of the world’s earthquakes occur and where 80% of the world’s largest earthquakes originate. The Fukushima nuclear accident only shows us that no amount of safety precautions will prevent a possible nuclear meltdown and accident in earthquake prone areas like Japan and the Philippines. If in Japan we are now witnessing a possible nuclear catastrophe, that well-trained scientists and nuclear physicists with world-class technological know-how are unable to prevent, what assurance do we then have that the same accident will not happen to the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant if it is operationalized? The BNPP was also found to have 4,000 defects that prompted the mothballing of the project in 1986 by the late President Corazon Aquino. No amount of safety precautions will prevent a Chernobyl or Fukushima-like nuclear disaster, or even worse, happening in the Philippines.
Partido Lakas ng Masa calls on President Aquino’s government to stop all efforts to re-open the talks on the possibility of rehabilitating and operationalizing the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The Government should find other alternative source of renewable energy, that are sustainable and environment friendly, plentiful and easily available in the Philippines, i.e. plenty of sun or solar, wind, thermal and hydropower energy sources. The Government should commit itself to giving top priority to renewable energy – solar, wind, thermal and hydro – and place renewable energy power generation at the center of a national energy program and strategy.
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