Nuclear power could cut Western Visayas electricity bills, lawmaker says

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

ILOILO CITY – A lawmaker pushing for nuclear energy development in the Philippines said Wednesday, July 29, that Western Visayas would gain cheaper electricity and a more reliable supply if the country taps the technology.

Pangasinan 2nd District Rep. Mark Cojuangco, who chairs the House of Representatives committee on nuclear energy, said the power supply problems in Iloilo and the rest of Western Visayas, despite the region’s dependence on coal, exposed the need for better and cheaper sources.

Cojuangco is a principal author of Republic Act No. 12305, or the Philippine National Nuclear Energy Safety Act, which established a legal framework for the safe use of nuclear energy and created the country’s atomic energy regulator, the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority, or PhilATOM.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the measure on Sept. 18, 2025. The law does not authorize the construction of any nuclear plant. It creates the independent regulator that would have to license one.

Cojuangco touted Vietnam’s nuclear-powered residential energy supply, which he said costs only around PHP 5.50 per kilowatt-hour.

Vietnam, however, has no operating nuclear power plant. Its National Assembly revived the shelved Ninh Thuan program in late 2024, and Hanoi signed an intergovernmental agreement with Russia in March 2026 for two reactors. The first unit is targeted for 2030 at the earliest.

The lawmaker said the Philippines, which already has a nuclear power plant in Bataan, would need to buy only about USD 20 million worth of uranium a year to generate 1,000 megawatts of power.

He compared this with coal and other imported fuels, which he said would cost USD 350 million to USD 450 million a year for the same output.

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was completed in 1984 but was never fueled or operated, and successive administrations have debated whether to rehabilitate it.

Cojuangco also said a nuclear plant could benefit the local communities where plants may be built, because the bulk of spending would shift to salaries and training rather than fuel.

“Why are there power outages in [Panay Island]? It may be lacking. What’s your next plan? Is it another coal plant, or will it be something different? That’s the conversation we should be having here,” Cojuangco said.

“Instead of paying so much for fuel, nuclear pays more for salaries. It needs knowledge workers—more training, more responsibility. A nuclear power plant of 1,000 megawatts employs 1,000 regular employees,” he said.

Cojuangco said Western Visayas has to seize its opportunity to host a nuclear plant within the region or risk falling behind Cebu and Negros.

Panay Island, which sits at the tail end of the Philippine grid system, has been vulnerable to outages in recent years.

An island-wide blackout hit Panay and Guimaras from Jan. 2 to 5, 2024, after roughly 452 megawatts were lost to the Visayas grid, triggering an Energy Regulatory Commission investigation.

Grid stress has persisted. The Iloilo City-based Institute of Contemporary Economics reported that manual load dropping from May 13, 2026, onward affected a combined 645,400 customers across the MORE Power, Negros Power, and Bohol Light franchise areas, with 940,848 kilowatt-hours of energy lost.

“You [Panay] have to go first. If you don’t, Cebu will go first, [and] you would have to buy from Cebu, right? If Cebu doesn’t want it, Negros might, then you would have to buy from Negros. Your resources will go there,” the lawmaker said.

Gayle Certeza, lead convener of Alpas Pilipinas, an organization that advocates for nuclear energy in the country, explained the so-called environmental advantage of nuclear energy.

In a typical nuclear energy production process, a uranium atom is split through nuclear fission, generating heat that boils water. The resulting steam turns a turbine to generate electricity.

Certeza said that compared with the country’s current energy sources, nuclear energy emits only water vapor, unlike carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ash, and other potentially toxic byproducts.

“Combustion [energy] is like an analog phone, while nuclear is like newer [smartphones]. You have a computer, a television, a game console, all in one. Fission is distinctly different from combustion,” she said.