Philippines and weapons of mass destruction
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Philippines is not known, or believed, to possess weapons of mass destruction. Article II Section 8 of the Philippine Constitution explicitly forbids the presence of nuclear weapons in the Philippines. The Philippines, as a ratifier to the Biological Weapons Convention, bans all production and import of biological weapons in the country. It also signed the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, thus promoting a nuclear-weapons-free Southeast Asia.


Nuclear energy and weapons

The Philippine nuclear program started in 1958 with the creation of the
Philippine Atomic Energy Commission The Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) is a government agency under the Department of Science and Technology mandated to undertake research and development activities in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, institute regulations on ...
(PAEC) under Republic Act 2067. A year after
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
declared martial law in 1972, he announced the decision to build a nuclear power plant at Bataan. Marcos reasoned that this was in response to the
1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
, as the Middle East oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the Philippine economy.ABS-CBN News. (2007)
ABS-CBN Interactive
Retrieved 2007-06-13.
He temporarily suspended construction in 1979 citing health and safety concerns. The plant was completed in 1984. However, two years later in 1986, the year in which Marcos was ousted from power following the People Power Revolution, and the same year in which the reactor at Chernobyl, Soviet Union (now part of Ukraine) accidentally exploded, the new president
Corazon Aquino Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (; ; January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People P ...
decided not to operate the plant Retrieved 2008-08-26. due to the proximity to a major geological fault and to then dormant
stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and per ...
Mt. Pinatubo Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano in the Zambales Mountains, located on the tripoint boundary of the Philippine provinces of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga, all in Central Luzon on the northern island of Luzon. Its eruptive history wa ...
which erupted in 1991. In 2016, Senator
Juan Ponce Enrile Juan Valentin Furagganan Ponce Enrile Sr., (born Juanito Furagganan; February 14, 1924), also referred to by his initials JPE, or Manong Johnny, is a Filipino politician and lawyer known for his role in the administration of Philippine dicta ...
, a former defence secretary under the Marcos administration, claimed that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was intended to be used in a development of a nuclear weapons program. While he maintained that the facility's main purpose was for electricity generation he alleged that the nuclear power plant's second purpose is for nuclear weapons production. Enrile speculated that if the Philippines had successfully developed nuclear weapons, China would be deterred in pursuing aggressive claims in the South China Sea. However he admitted that he was not aware on the mechanics and technology in the production of nuclear weapons himself. During the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, specifically at the time of
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
from 1965 to 1986, American nuclear warheads were secretly stockpiled in the country. The Filipino public never knew of it until much later after the regime, and only Marcos knew of it as he was secretly informed by American military advisers as early as 1966. Currently, however, there was a
movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
in the country that aims to stop construction of nuclear power plants in the country and terminate American military presence in the country, which were believed to house nuclear weapons on Philippine soil. Despite provocations by
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
since 2010s amidst the South China Sea disputes, President
Benigno Simeon Aquino III Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. The son of ...
disagreed on letting the Philippines have nuclear weapons. He justified it from the lack of government funds to create such weapon, coupled with the fact that having such weapon would only escalate tensions between the two countries. In 2019,
Juan Ponce Enrile Juan Valentin Furagganan Ponce Enrile Sr., (born Juanito Furagganan; February 14, 1924), also referred to by his initials JPE, or Manong Johnny, is a Filipino politician and lawyer known for his role in the administration of Philippine dicta ...
reiterates his earlier claims in 2016 that the Philippines should have developed nuclear weapons to assert its claims, particularly in reinforcing the ''
Philippines v. China ''Philippines v. China'' ( PCA case number 2013–19), also known as the South China Sea Arbitration, was an arbitration case brought by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China (PRC) under Annex VII of the United ...
'' international arbitration ruling, regarding its territorial disputes with China. Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana in response to Enrile's statement said that the Philippines is not planning to develop nuclear weapons due to the country's limited technological capabilities as well as legal obligations such as being party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, the Philippines had signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on 20 September 2017, and would proceed to ratify it on 18 February 2021.


Biological and chemical weapons

Rebels from the communist New People's Army were accused of using biological weapons against the Armed Forces of the Philippines in eastern Mindanao, but they refuted such a claim. Philippines signed the
Chemical Weapons Convention The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), officially the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, is an arms control treaty administered by the Organisation for ...
in 1993.


References


See also

* {{Portal bar, Nuclear technology Foreign relations of the Philippines Armed Forces of the Philippines Politics of the Philippines Weapons of mass destruction by country