PHL Embassy Staff Joins the World’s Nuclear Watchdog in Vienna

Philippine Ambassador to Austria Maria Cleofe R. Natividad (right) and Mr. Benigno Aquino (left) at the Embassy and Permanent Mission in Vienna.

19 March 2018 VIENNA — Mr. Benigno Aquino, a Filipino physicist with specialization in the nuclear field, will be joining the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog, as the only Filipino safeguards inspector.

In this capacity, Mr. Aquino will be contributing directly to the IAEA’s mandate to deter the spread of nuclear weapons by the early detection of the misuse of nuclear material or technology. This mandate has become even more important in relation to the monitoring and verification work of the IAEA in Iran and North Korea.

Mr. Aquino has worked as adviser and multilateral assistant on nuclear matters at the Philippine Embassy and Mission in Vienna, Austria since 2015.

Ambassador Maria Cleofe R. Natividad, Philippine Resident Representative to the IAEA, said “I am pleased that the Mission has nurtured and trained a young scientist like Mr. Aquino whose passion and dedication in the nuclear field has paved the way for renewed Philippine representation at the inspectorate. As an advocate of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the Philippines strongly supports nuclear safeguards. I hope that his example will inspire other young people to enter the nuclear field.”

IAEA safeguards are an essential component of the international security system. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the centerpiece of global efforts to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. Under the Treaty’s Article 3, each Non-Nuclear Weapon State is required to conclude a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The Philippines, as a State Party to the NPT, has been honoring its international legal obligations to use nuclear material and technology for exclusively peaceful purposes since 1974, when it entered into a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA). The Philippines also ratified the Protocol Additional to its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement in 2010.

Prior to joining the Mission, Mr. Aquino completed internships with the IAEA’s Department of Nuclear Energy and with the IAEA’s Department of Nuclear Safety and Security. He has worked at two nuclear facilities, the Atominsitut in Vienna and at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He holds a bachelor’s degree in technical physics and a master’s degree in energy physics from the Vienna University of Technology, where he specialized in reactor physics and in nuclear engineering. END

For more information, visit www.viennape.dfa.gov.ph/

 www.philippine-embassy.at or @pevienna on Twitter

Mr. Aquino pictured here during a radiation monitoring exercise in the Dead Sea area of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.