Good morning, everyone! I hope you're all doing well and to you Mr.

Chairman, Judges, and for

the rest of the class as well. Before anything else, I would like to introduce today’s speakers from our
team. First I’m Lil Benedict Herrera as your first speaker talking about necessity and Ms. Mendoza as
second speaker for the beneficiality and lastly Ms. Calata for Practicability. We are here today to
strongly condemn the use and construction of nuclear energy in the Philippines.

As your first speaker, I will be emphasizing on why nuclear energy in the Philippines is not
necessary, contrary to the arguments of the affirmative team presented and also I will provide three
points to further elaborate on the reasons why.

My first point The long time lag between planning and operation of a nuclear reactor includes
the times to identifying a site, obtaining a site permit, buying or leasing the land, obtaining a
construction permit, obtaining financing and insurance for construction, installing the transmission,
negotiating a power purchase agreement, obtaining permits, building the plant, connecting it to
transmission, and obtaining a final operating license all contribute to the lengthy time gap between
planning and operation of a nuclear reactor. With everything going on, I highly doubt that we will be
able to implement it smoothly, which I completely reject because it is an unrealistic notion. As an
illustration, the lifespan of every nuclear power station built to date has been 10–19 years or more. For
example, Olkiluoto 3 in Finland was proposed in 2000, and its latest estimated completion date is 2020.
The Hinkley Point nuclear plant was planned to start in 2008, but it is now estimated that it will take at
least 10 years to complete. The four reactors in Ringhals, Sweden started in 1965, and took 32 years to
complete.

Regarding my second argument, the technical barrier, a nation's technological capacity for
nuclear power generation requires a high degree of knowledge and proficiency. While Filipino scientists
have developed competitive expertise in renewable energy sources as Pedro Maniego Jr. senior policy
advisor of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities. stated “The Philippines is number one in
Southeast Asia in sourcing its power from renewable energy, with a share of 24.2 percent in gross
generation and 32.5 percent in installed capacity. However, almost 76 percent of our power generation
was still supplied by fossil fuel plants”. While the Philippines need more experts with the ability to
manage important domains in the organization of a nuclear power plant. There is scarce literature on
operating nuclear power in the Philippines with respect to energy security, price volatility, and response
to climate change issues. The Philippines has been an active member of the International Atomic Energy
Agency for the past 20 years. The country is open to collaboration in trying various pathways toward
transitioning away from fossil fuels as energy sources. While international cooperation on capacity-
building with other countries is ongoing, there is still no clear direction on the extent of such
partnerships.

To my third point, weapons proliferation risk of the nuclear energy can become. The growth of
nuclear energy has historically increased the ability of nations to obtain or harvest plutonium or enrich
uranium to manufacture nuclear weapons. According to Hafemeister (2016), Nuclear weapons
proliferation concern is a barrier and risk to the increasing development of nuclear energy. The nuclear
weapon proliferation, a debate triggered by the deadly atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War and recently reopened following rising concerns
over a nuclear escalation in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. After the world saw the highly destructive effect
of these bombs, which caused the death of tens of thousands of people, not only in the impact itself but
also in the days, weeks, and months after the tragedy as a consequence of radiation sickness.

Nuclear energy evolved to a pure means of generating electricity. However, This energy source
can still be seen as being deeply intertwined with nuclear weapons technologies and believe that, with
nuclear technologies becoming globally available, the risk of them falling into the wrong hands is high,
especially in countries with high levels of corruption and instability.

In summary, nuclear power is not necessary for the Philippines, as Dr. Peter Bradford of
Vermont Law, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stated: “A world that relies
more heavily on nuclear energy would include many plants in countries with little experience in nuclear
energy, no regulatory background in the field and some questionable records have quality control,
security and corruption.”