The Philippine nuclear program started in 1958 with the creation of the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) under Republic Act 2067. A year after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 because of NPA (New People's Army) rebellion against the government, he announced the decision to build a nuclear power plant at Bataan. This was in response to the 1973 oil crisis, as the Middle East oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the Philippine economy, and Marcos know that nuclear power is the solution to meeting the country's energy demands and decreasing dependence on imported oil. 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 decided not to operate the plant. Mt. Pinatubo, which erupted in 1991.