Rene Saguisag
The Manila Times
May 19, 2006

But, Raffy Recto, a true-blue Marcos loyalist, also opposed the plant. Ronnie started on the wrong foot. If nuclear power became “a bad word,” it was due to him, Marcos, Disini and Westinghouse, who created a bias against it because of the way they mishandled the issue in their time.

In Winnie Monsod’s BusinessWorld piece on May 11, she said in praise of Ronnie’s memoirs: “But where he is at his most compelling is in his discussion of why mothballing the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant [while continuing to pay the debt] was the worst decision after EDSA 1.” I do not recall her objecting to my mothball proposal in 1986 but I do agree with her, and Ronnie, that we had a shot at not paying the odious nuclear plant loan. It was not that simple though. Westinghouse had been paid and we would have to deal with lenders all over the world.

The plant saw the US Export-Import Bank loaning us $644 million, the single biggest sum it had packaged on any project, as of then, despite the fact that objective data showed that we had no capacity to repay the same.

There was hardly any comfort in the unsympathetic comment attributed to then Eximbank chairman, Bill Casey, in that “[i]f they [Westinghouse] charge too much, the Philippines has to pay for it . . . [t]hey have to protect themselves from being fleeced. We cannot nor would we do it for them.”

The price reportedly promp­ted Ting Paterno—Ronnie traces this to Ramon Ravanzo, Napo­cor GM, based on a 1992 local column but, on January 14, 1978, The New York Times attributed it to Ting—to say in a memo that we were getting “one reactor for the price of two.” I had a brod (from Rizal High and Mapua) and a brod-in-law (from La Salle and UP) in Bechtel then.

The latter came at the time but could not see where a huge sum was to go, and decided not to get involved. Not Bechtel’s culture.

Winnie said Ronnie credited martial law for our progress. My take is that it destroyed our values, institutions and processes. He helped ruin the ethical infrastructure we needed then and need now. I hope Bert Romulo, Gary Teves and Peter Favila learn from Ronnie’s memoirs and understand what “trust deficit” means. Ronnie said he had “refused to be drawn into discussing issues of corruption and simply focused on [his] job.” He naively trusted Citibank.

Ronnie mentioned “that beautiful house on top of a ridge” used by the Americans at the plant against which he railed. But, what about his own beautiful house nearby in Montemar, where materials from the plant were allegedly used, brought in by local fishermen as it was not accessible by land?

Such gossip or scuttlebutt in fact is widespread.

I live with tales of what I own all over. The fact is I have yet to sleep under a roof of a house I can call my own. Some might give me benefit of the doubt on money. Ronnie is seen as a rich guy who became richer while in power following the template of those who parlay public office to become richer and end up with dented credibility in their memoirs, which, as the Durants say, would be vanity anyway (as in the case of vain columnists).

I headed the nuclear power panels in the Palace and the Senate. No one took issue with me. Even Raffy was on our side. If we had decided to operate the plant that even Marcos dared not, where would we have been?

Macoy and Ronnie could have done it but did not. Earlier, Macoy even created in 1979 the Puno Commission where Sen. Lorenzo Tañada and Joker Arroyo shone.

Given the zeitgeist, we were not wrong in 1986. The Chernobyl tragedy in April 1986—an incredible deus ex machina—made my position so easy to sell in the Cabinet and elsewhere. Whether FVR, Erap or GMA should have revisited the issue Macoy and Cory would not touch is something Ronnie rues.

Man is a rational animal but a San Beda teacher would say that in fact he is more of an emotional one in the real world. A disconnect between the leadership and the people means trouble.

Count Herminio Disini is on slow trial here in the Sandiganbayan which has a special division only for Erap and special treatment for rich presidential cronies, it seems.

Am I open to nuclear power? Maybe only after UP is able to enroll students without having them queue at the crack of dawn. Among its outstanding alumni is my friend, Senator Miriam, who wants to return to the time when a deal can be made by a Disini. Without an obstructionist Senate and with a rubber-stamp something, one can be a superchief executive, a supercourt, a superlegislature and a one-woman continuing constitutional convention.