About a hundred environmentalists led a protest outside the Philippine’s House of Representatives Monday to denounce a bill to revive a mothballed nuclear power plant at a cost of one billion dollars.

The protesters, led by Greenpeace, erected a symbolic tombstone at the gates of the Lower House that they said was meant to remind lawmakers that the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) has long been shelved.

The protest came amid deliberations on a proposed one-billion-dollar fund to rehabilitate the Philippines' only nuclear power plant, which was completed in 1984 in a town west of Manila but never used due to environmental concerns.

"Greenpeace is calling for an end to the farce that is House Bill 4631," Greenpeace Southeast Asia executive director Von Hernandez said.

"This is not a bill that seeks the revival of the BNPP alone, but a bill that seeks to create the country's nuclear power program."

He said the Philippines' past history in pursuing a nuclear plant had been a "gargantuan and unjust burden" on Filipino taxpayers, who will ultimately pick up the tab for the rehabilitation of the plant.

"The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is already dead. It is a waste of people's time and money trying to revive such an outdated, expensive and dangerous facility," he said.

The bill's main proponent, Congressman Mark Cojuangco, has defended the move, saying that the plant will help the Philippines survive a projected deficit in electricity supply in two years.

The plant was originally meant to cost around 500 million dollars, but had a final price tag of 2.3 billion dollars, which was only paid off in April 2007.

A chunk of the inflated balance was allegedly stolen by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was ousted by a popular revolt in 1986, when the plant was about to be commissioned.

The successive government however refused to operate the plant, and the structure has over the years symbolized systemic corruption in the Philippines.