Bataan nuke plant’s cables sold to scrap dealers

BALANGA CITY, Bataan — Electric cables stolen from the mothballed Bataan nuclear power plant in Morong town are being sold by pilferers to scrap dealers, police discovered last Wednesday when a suspected dealer was caught transporting the cables to this city.

Superintendent Elmer Macapagal, Bataan police director, told The STAR that security forces at the power plant and policemen arrested Liwanag Malibiran of Barangay Diwa, Pilar town, for having in her possession some 60 kilos of conductor wires reportedly pilfered from the plant’s deep well pump station in Km. 167.

Macapagal said the cables, worth about P12,340, were sold to Malibiran by residents of Sitio Marucdoc in Barangay Nagbalayong, Morong for only P2,300.

The suspect, however, did not identify the residents who have been supplying her with materials pilfered from the idle power plant.

A criminal complaint for violation of the anti-fencing law was filed against Malibiran with the Bacag-Morong Municipal Circuit Trial Court. Her vehicle was also impounded.

The controversial nuclear power plant hogged the headlines anew with the government’s proposal to convert the 20-year-old facility into a gas-fired power-generating plant next year.

Bagac Mayor Armando Ramos told The STAR that the plan would provide additional income to his municipality, which is 25 kilometers from the power plant, and jobs for its 30,000 residents.

Bagac, one of the two towns in Bataan where the famous Death March started, gets the bulk of its revenues from 300,000 tourists who visit its more than 20 beach resorts yearly.