Questions to be Answered Re: Inquiry on the Safety of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

June 16, 1979

LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS NO. 876

TO : The Chairman and Co-Chairman Committee to Conduct an Inquiry on the Safety to the Public of the Proposed Nuclear Plant in the Country

In connection with your inquiry on the safety of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, you are hereby directed to obtain answers to the following questions:

1. What specific safeguards, if any, has been taken against repetition in the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant of the Three-Mile Island nuclear incident which occurred in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on March 28, 1979?

2. Who are the people who will operate the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and what are their qualifications?

3. In case there is an accident similar to the Three-Mile Island incident in the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, what resources, both scientific and industrial, are available to prevent contamination of the surrounding areas and atmosphere as well as the people residing thereat? Who will finance and provide facilities to prevent contamination and how much would it cost? Who will pay for the damages and costs?

4. Are we exchanging with or obtaining information on nuclear safeguards from other countries, like the United States through its Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the International Atomic Energy Commission which originally recommended the establishment of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in 1961? What are the maximum and minimum acceptable safeguards to prevent nuclear contamination. casia

5. In case there should be an earthquake similar to the one that hit Mindanao in August 1977, which was of 7.2 intensity on the Richter scale, will the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant be able to withstand the shock without leak or spillage resulting in nuclear contamination? Can it withstand a tsunami or tidal wave caused by earthquake or tectonic origin similar to the tsunami that hit Mindanao in August 1977?

6. Is the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant located in a fault in the earth's surface?

7. What is the history of earthquakes in the particular site of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant?

8. Where, how, and by whom will nuclear waste be disposed of and what are the risk involved in the disposal procedure?

9. About a week after the Three-Mile Island incident on March 28, 1979, I directed the Ministry of Energy to require Westinghouse to send experts to the Philippines to explain doubts that have arisen especially in the mind of the President about the safety of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Why has not Westinghouse done so up to now? cd i

DONE in the City of Manila, this 16th day of June, in the year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Nine.