The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was the biggest white elephant project in the country, costing about $2.3 billion but never generated a single watt of electricity. However, when President Corazon Aquino assumed power in 1986, she still vowed to pay all the BNPP-related loans despite the corruption that accompanied this deal between the government of Marcos and American firm White Westinghouse. Filipinos would be haunted by this massive loans for 32 years as over half of the government’s revenues were allotted to pay the BNPP loans as other pressing needs, such as education, health, housing, security, and others, had to be paid with whatever was left in the budget. In 2007, windfall from the passage of the VAT law allowed the Arroyo government to fully pay the useless BNPP loans.
