Marcos wants more dams built

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants more dams to be constructed to ensure the country’s water supply, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) said Tuesday.

NIA Administrator Eduardo Guillen said building additional dams would address several issues simultaneously.

“What the President wants now is for us to build high dams so that we will have a long-term solution. He said, ‘When you have a high dam, you have flood control, you have irrigation, you have power generation, aquaculture. What more can you ask?’ So, this is the focus of our President,” Guillen said at a Palace press briefing, noting many of the country’s dams like Magat and Pantabangan were aging.

“That is what we are doing now because every time we have water problems, it is because the big dams we depend on, Magat and Pantabangan, were built way back in the time of Marcos Sr. Pantabangan is turning 50 years in September. Unfortunately, following administrations did not construct projects of such nature,” he added.

Guillen said Marcos expects three to five large dams to be finished before his term ends in 2028, which include the Tumauini River Multipurpose Project in Cagayan Valley, the Panay River Basin in Panay Island, and several more in the Ilocos Region.

The NIA chief added that the construction of 10 medium dams was expected to be finished by the end of 2024 or early 2025.

Guillen said these were on top of around 20 medium-scale irrigation projects the NIA was tasked to construct across the archipelago during Marcos’ term.

He added that the NIA was developing solar-powered irrigation for farmers in remote areas that had yet to be reached by the government’s irrigation system.