MindaNews / 27 July 2026– President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he wants to revisit nuclear energy production, a program started during his father’s administration but was shelved due to safety issues.

“We are already using nuclear energy in the fields of medicine, agriculture, water filtration, and the upcycling of plastic.

“We are confident in its capacity to reinforce our energy security and bring down the cost of electricity in our country,” he said in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) Monday.

He said measures will be taken to ensure the safety of using nuclear energy and to explain well to the public its advantage.

In response to the 1973 oil crisis, President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. decided to build a nuclear plant in Morong, Bataan. Construction work began in July 1976 and was completed in 1984 at a cost of $1.9 billion.

However, due to financial issues, including corruption allegations, and safety concerns related to earthquakes it was never loaded with fuel or operated. Following the April 1986 Chernobyl accident, President Corazon Aquino decided to mothball the plant.

Concrete plans to tap nuclear energy as a long-term option started during the Duterte administration through the Nuclear Power Program Roadmap under the Philippine Energy Plan 2018-2040. The program envisages the country’s first nuclear plant being commissioned from 2027 at the earliest.

‘Sufficient fuel supply’

Marcos devoted at least 30 paragraphs to how the administration dealt with the oil crisis triggered by the conflict in the Middle East, as well as outlined his administration’s energy program, which includes the nuclear energy option.

Marcos attributed the Philippines’ sufficiency in fuel supply amid the crisis to “good relations” with other countries.

He said that despite the closure of the Strait of Hormuz the country was able to export oil from Japan, South Korea, Oman, India, Russia, and even China with the Philippines has a territorial row.

He said this enabled the Philippines to stockpile fuel supply that will last two months.

He added his government has talked to Iran for the safety of Filipino seafarers in the Strait of Hormuz.

He claimed that with the cooperation of oil companies, the increase in the prices of petroleum has not been sudden, but gradual within a week, so as not to burden the already suffering consumers.

“We have also set successive and bigtime price rollbacks that oil companies should comply with.

“With help from the law passed by Congress, we also suspended for three months the excise tax on LPG and kerosene,” he added in his speech delivered mostly in Filipino.

Marcos, however, acknowledged the high cost of electricity, attributing it to high crude prices and appreciation of the dollar against the peso.

He said he has instituted some protection measures for electricity consumers by ordering power companies to immediately refund those who were overcharged.

He said he has ordered that some select consumers be allowed to pay in installments their electric bills for May, June and July. In connection to this, he said, disconnection has been prohibited during this period.

Marcos cited the removal of tariffs on electric vehicles until 2028 to bring down market prices. He said that “consistent with our clean energy drive, we have encouraged the adoption of electric vehicles…and government has also been mandated to prioritize electric vehicles in their refleeting plans.”

“Our goal is that by 2040, half of the vehicles are already EVs,” he said.

He added that the country is giving more importance to technologies that don’t rely on crude but are driven by renewable and indigenous sources of energy such as geothermal, solar, hydro, wind, and biomass.

He announced that because of the extension of the Malampaya service contract until 2039, drilling operations once again resumed for the first time in eight years.

“What we have uncovered is truly a national treasure: an untapped reserve of 222 billion cubic feet of natural gas, which bodes well for the continuous production of our premier gas field until 2034.

“To put it in context, 222 billion cubic feet of natural gas is sufficient to power 1.6 million households for the next eight years until 2034,” he said.

A total of 14 petroleum service contracts have already been awarded in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, four of which are for the production of hydrogen, “which is native to our motherland.”

“Hydrogen gas will serve as back-up fuel for our power plants, especially useful for our off-grid areas. It is also touted as the world’s clean fuel of the future.

“Two of the newly awarded petroleum service contracts are co-managed with BARMM Government. This is the first time in our political history. BARMM is now firmly set to pursue its strategic vision of energy security and total electrification for and in the Bangsamoro region,” he pointed out. (H. Marcos C. Mordeno/MindaNews)