President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Monday said the government is considering the generation of power throughout the country using nuclear energy.

This as Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) chairman H.E. Mohamed Al Hammadi paid a courtesy call on Marcos in Malacañang on Monday.

The President told Mohamed the Philippines hopes to work with ENEC as looking into nuclear energy for the entire country is a “very high priority topic.”

“Thank you very much. I’m glad that we had this chance… for you to visit us. Because this is a subject that we have been talking about for a long time. And especially after the pandemic, I’m trying to figure out what are the needs of the government,” Marcos told Hammadi.

“And this had become a very high priority topic. I hope we can find ways to help each other in this,” he added.

The UAE government had tasked ENEC with delivering the Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program and building the first nuclear new build project in the Arab World, the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant.

It has been delivering the objectives for generating peaceful nuclear energy for the UAE in cooperation with local, regional, and international players.

First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos led a delegation of Filipinos, including Pangasinan Representative Mark Cojuangco, Kathryna Yu-Pimentel, Benito Techico, Rafael Consing, and UAE Ambassador Alfonso Ver, in a meeting with ENEC on 27–29 June.

Cojuangco, a nuclear energy advocate, reaffirmed his call for a strategic partnership with the UAE to rebuild the Philippines’ nuclear facility. Cojuangco and Hamadi informed the First Lady that they had invited the President to join the International Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy-2024 Objectives at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The First Lady announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs is coordinating inputs from interested agencies regarding the Philippines’ participation and that she will discuss this with the President.