When a sitting president declares a national energy emergency and repeatedly invites the country to “revisit nuclear energy,” he is not just floating a technical option; he is reopening a decades‑old argument about how the Philippines powers its economy, manages risk, and builds long‑term institutions.
Key Points
- President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made nuclear energy a recurring centerpiece of his energy agenda, from his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2022 to his fifth SONA, where he said “perhaps it is time for us to revisit nuclear energy production.”
- The administration has moved beyond rhetoric by declaring a national energy emergency and signing the Philippine National Nuclear Energy Safety Act, which creates an independent regulator, the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (PhilATOM).
- Government planning now envisages nuclear power plants entering the Philippine grid around 2032, with capacity rising toward mid‑century as part of a broader clean‑energy and industrial strategy.
- Policy work is focused on feasibility and institution‑building: a study with South Korea on reviving the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, international cooperation with the United States and others, and a detailed nuclear framework naming a “Pioneer Nuclear Power Plant.”
- Despite the momentum, no Philippine nuclear plant is yet operating, cost benefits remain unproven in practice, and safety, waste, legal, and public‑trust issues still define the gap between aspiration and reality.
Marcos’ Nuclear Turn: From Campaign Promise to Governing Doctrine
President Marcos did not arrive in office as a nuclear agnostic; he campaigned on the promise that nuclear power could help lower the country’s notoriously high electricity rates. In his first SONA on July 25, 2022, he translated that promise into governing language, telling Congress that “it is time… to reexamine our strategy towards building nuclear power plants in the Philippines” and pledging compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations, strengthened after the Fukushima accident. This was not a one‑off line. By his fifth SONA, delivered amid what he had already framed as a national energy emergency, he pushed the theme further: “Perhaps it is time for us to revisit nuclear energy production… We are confident in its capacity to reinforce our energy security and bring down the cost of electricity in our country.”
Those statements do two important things. First, they tie nuclear energy directly to everyday concerns—electricity prices, brownouts, long‑term supply—rather than treating it as a niche technology. Second, they place nuclear power alongside, rather than in opposition to, renewables and other clean‑energy options; Marcos repeatedly speaks of nuclear as part of a diversified energy mix and a clean‑energy transition rather than a single “silver bullet.”
Building the Legal and Regulatory Backbone: PhilATOM and the Safety Act
Talk alone does not produce kilowatt‑hours; nuclear power is a heavily regulated domain where legal architecture and technical oversight are prerequisites. On that front, the Marcos administration has made one of its most consequential moves: the passage and signing of the Philippine National Nuclear Energy Safety Act, codified as Republic Act No. 12305. This law establishes the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority—PhilATOM—as an independent nuclear regulator with “sole and exclusive jurisdiction” over the peaceful, safe, and secure uses of nuclear energy and all sources of ionizing radiation.
PhilATOM’s mandate is broad. It is tasked with issuing regulations to protect the public from risks related to radioactive waste and spent fuel, overseeing nuclear and radiation activities in medicine, agriculture, industry, and power generation, and serving as the point of contact for nuclear and radiological emergencies. The law expressly restricts nuclear activities to peaceful purposes and prohibits nuclear explosives or radiological weapons, aligning domestic rules with non‑proliferation norms. In practice, this kind of institution is what separates serious nuclear programs from rhetorical flirtations; without an empowered, technically competent regulator, no credible reactor vendor or multilateral lender will treat the country as bankable.
Regulatory maturation is already being tested against international benchmarks. A 2024 IAEA review mission found that the Philippines had met nine of fourteen nuclear‑infrastructure requirements, with the remainder in progress—an indication that, while the system is still evolving, it is moving beyond aspirational documents into structured compliance.
From Bataan Relic to Pioneer Plant: Planning the First Nuclear Kilowatt-hour
The question most Filipinos ask is not whether nuclear is interesting—it is whether anything will ever be built. Here, the legacy of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) looms large. Constructed during Marcos Sr.’s era but never fueled or operated, BNPP has become a symbol of both sunk cost and unresolved opportunity. The current administration is confronting that legacy directly. In 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) signed an agreement with Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) to conduct a comprehensive technical and economic feasibility study on rehabilitating BNPP.
The KHNP study, scheduled to run in two phases from January to July 2025, is significant for two reasons. First, all costs are borne by the Korean side, reducing fiscal risk in the exploration phase. Second, the Philippine government is explicitly not obliged to proceed with rehabilitation or purchase any services solely on the basis of KHNP’s findings. That structure keeps options open: BNPP could be revived, replaced, or supplemented by a new plant elsewhere, depending on the verdict of detailed engineering, seismic, economic, and safety analyses.
In parallel, policy planning has begun to treat a “Pioneer Nuclear Power Plant” as a priority baseload facility with guaranteed grid access, exempt from the usual competitive bidding rules applied to other generators. Government frameworks now envisage the first nuclear plant delivering power around 2032, with capacity rising to roughly 2,600 megawatts by 2035 and 4,800 megawatts by 2050. These are not yet binding commitments in concrete and steel, but they set directional expectations for utilities, financiers, and foreign partners.
International Partnerships and Technology Choices: From Large Reactors to SMRs
Marcos’ nuclear push is decisively outward‑looking. The Philippines has signed a cooperation agreement with the United States that includes training Filipinos to build and operate nuclear power plants, part of a broader Section 123 framework governing civil nuclear cooperation. The administration has publicly explored partnership possibilities with the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation in the UAE and expressed openness to collaboration with Russia, France, and U.S. vendors.
Technology choice is a live debate. Traditional large‑scale reactors remain one pathway, particularly in any BNPP rehabilitation scenario. At the same time, U.S. firms have proposed small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro nuclear fuel technologies as potentially better fits for an archipelagic grid with dispersed load centers and limited transmission capacity. SMRs promise factory‑built modules, enhanced safety features, and more flexible deployment. Yet they also carry unresolved questions: commercial track record, true cost per kilowatt‑hour, and maintenance challenges in a tropical, maritime environment. Critics have already described some SMR proposals as “costly” and unproven at scale in the Philippine context.
For now, the Philippine strategy appears deliberately pluralist—evaluating both rehabilitation of legacy infrastructure and adoption of newer designs, while relying on PhilATOM and IAEA engagement to keep safety and safeguards in view.
Nuclear as a Strategic Pillar of Clean Energy and Industrial Policy
Marcos does not talk about nuclear energy solely as a way to keep air conditioners running; he casts it as a “strategic pillar” of the Philippines’ long‑term energy future and industrial development. In speeches to forums such as the Philippine International Nuclear Supply Chain Forum, he has argued that nuclear power offers stability for long‑term planning, supports the continuity of institutions, and underpins ambitions for high‑value manufacturing and science‑driven growth.
That framing matters. Philippine power prices are among the highest in Southeast Asia, driven by imported fuel costs, limited baseload capacity, and grid constraints. The administration’s clean‑energy agenda—spanning renewables expansion, battery storage, and grid upgrades—aims to address these issues, but intermittent sources alone cannot solve all reliability challenges. Nuclear is presented as a complement: a carbon‑free, high‑capacity baseload source that can anchor an energy mix otherwise dominated by coal, gas, and variable renewables.
Still, this remains a strategic hypothesis rather than an empirically demonstrated Philippine reality. Claims that nuclear will “bring down the cost of electricity” are grounded in global experience and modeling, not in domestic operating data, because no Philippine reactor has yet delivered a single commercial kilowatt‑hour. Whether nuclear ultimately proves cheaper than a combination of renewables, storage, gas, and efficiency will depend on financing terms, project management, technology choices, and how well regulatory institutions perform over decades.
The Persistent Gaps: Safety, Waste, Law, and Public Trust
For many citizens, the core question is not whether nuclear can work somewhere; it is whether it can be made acceptably safe, affordable, and corruption‑resistant in the Philippines. The administration’s answer so far is institution‑heavy: PhilATOM for regulation and safeguards, alignment with IAEA standards, and explicit commitments that implementation will be safe and benefits properly explained to the public.
Yet several gaps remain. Safety assurances are still largely procedural—laws, regulatory missions, and general statements—rather than site‑specific. Detailed seismic, tsunami, and climate‑resilience modeling for candidate sites, along with emergency‑planning drills and public‑health readiness audits, have not yet been published in a form that would satisfy skeptical observers. A comprehensive national strategy for spent fuel and radioactive waste—covering interim storage, transport, and eventual disposal—has not been fully aired in public debate. Legal complexity is visible as well: analysts have flagged that multiple existing statutes, agencies, and permitting regimes must be harmonized before ground can realistically be broken on any reactor project.
Public trust is shaped by history. The mothballed BNPP is widely remembered as a monument to cost overruns, political controversy, and technological limbo. Global memory of accidents—from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Fukushima—continues to inform perceptions, even as modern reactors are designed with more robust safety systems. Environmental and anti‑nuclear groups already criticize the nuclear push as economically unsound and risky, arguing that renewables and storage could deliver cleaner power with less hazard.
What Would Turn Ambition into Evidence?
Given how much of Marcos’ nuclear agenda still resides in feasibility studies, frameworks, and laws, the next phase will be defined by whether the government can convert plans into measurable outcomes. Several steps would be particularly telling. A Philippine‑specific integrated resource plan, published with transparent assumptions, that compares nuclear, renewables, gas, storage, efficiency, and grid upgrades on cost and reliability would give substance to claims about lower electricity rates and energy security.
Full disclosure of the KHNP feasibility study on BNPP—including engineering assessments, seismic analysis, rehabilitation costs, decommissioning scenarios, and waste‑management assumptions—would clarify whether reviving the plant is wiser than building anew. Any binding financing term sheet for a first project, with details on sovereign guarantees, tariff structures, export‑credit support, and insurance, would signal whether nuclear is economically credible rather than aspirational.
Equally important, a published national nuclear waste strategy, site‑level safety models, and documented emergency‑response drills would help bridge the gap between regulatory text and lived safety practice. Transparent procurement processes and anti‑corruption safeguards in vendor selection—whether the partner is Korean, American, Russian, Emirati, or otherwise—would address lingering fears that nuclear might become another venue for opaque deals.
Long Timelines, Short Patience
Nuclear projects are measured in decades; political patience is not. Even if Marcos’ vision is ultimately sound, nuclear energy will not materially lower electricity prices in the next few years. Before construction can start, the country must complete feasibility studies, finalize regulatory frameworks, negotiate financing, and prepare local institutions. In the meantime, citizens will judge the administration by the bills they pay and the reliability of the power they receive.
That mismatch between nuclear timelines and public expectations may be the most practical risk the program faces. If prices remain high and outages persistent, nuclear advocacy may be dismissed as another grand project that never quite arrives. If, however, the government manages to show disciplined planning, transparent decision‑making, and credible progress toward a first plant—while delivering shorter‑term improvements through renewables, storage, and grid reforms—then the repeated call to “revisit nuclear energy” will look less like a slogan and more like the early chapters of a long‑term institutional transformation.
Sources:
insiderpaper.com, newsinfo.inquirer.net, asianews.network, mb.com.ph, youtube.com, pna.gov.ph, globalnation.inquirer.net, dost.gov.ph, powerphilippines.com, washingtonpost.com, gmanetwork.com, s3.amazonaws.com, business.inquirer.net, philstar.com, nuclearbusiness-platform.com, world-nuclear.org, nucnet.org, straitstimes.com, ppp.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday pushed for the further study on the use of nuclear energy to lower electricity cost.
Read more: https://t.co/UvawrBWT6t pic.twitter.com/wHAR2RYaay
— The Manila Times (@TheManilaTimes) July 27, 2026
