EDITORIAL - Monument to corruption

We have a new monument, and it’s one that no Filipino wants. Transparency International, in its 2005 Corruption Report, listed the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant among several "monuments to corruption" in construction projects around the world. Transparency noted that the contractor of the BNPP had admitted paying $17 million in "commissions" to a crony of dictator Ferdinand Marcos to win the deal.

Which reminds us — will we ever find some use for this white elephant? The BNPP cost Philippine taxpayers a whopping $2.3 billion to build and is still costing the nation about $155,000 a day in debt repayment. Since Marcos’ ouster in 1986 until 2002, taxpayers have shelled out a total of P57.8 billion to service debts for a power plant that has never been used. Last year debt servicing for the BNPP cost the nation over P2 billion — the single biggest debt obligation for the cash-strapped government.

In July last year the government revived graft charges against Marcos crony Herminio Disini for allegedly accepting $18 million in bribes for the award of the BNPP contract in 1974 — $1 million from US firm Burns and Roe and $17 million from contractor Westinghouse Electric Corp. Construction started in 1976 and the project was completed in 1984.

The post-Marcos government sued Westinghouse, which settled the case for P188 million in 1992. But the nation’s indebtedness remained, with full payment expected no earlier than 2010. The nation still doesn’t know what to do with the power plant, which sits on an earthquake fault and has deteriorated so much after three decades. And the case against Disini is bound to languish in court. The only ones who have been and continue to be punished for this "monument to corruption" are Philippine taxpayers.