NIA allots P800M FAPs for Malinao upgrading

Malinao Dam

By Marlon Balmadrid 

 QUEZON CITY – The P800-million Malinao dam upgrading is set for implementation next year as the House of Representatives approved Thursday night the proposed General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2013.

Rep. Erico Aumentado (Bohol, 2nd District), co-author of the GAA said next year’s budget includes P81.366 milion under the National Irrigation Administration’s (NIA) foreign assisted projects (FAPs) for one of Bohol’s mega dams.

Aumentado said Administrator Antonio Nangel had positively responded to his letter urging NIA to allocate the initial funding as forward obligational authority to jumpstart the multi-year Malinao dam upgrading.

In a letter to the solon, Nangel said the sum of P38.183 millon was earmarked from the Korean government concessional loan through its Export Import Bank (Eximbank). Another P3.183 million is allotted as initial counterpart of the Government of the Philippines (GOP).

The upgrading project will double the storage capacity of the Malinao dam from five million to 10 million cubic meters which can then irrigate an additional 2,730 hectares of rice land in Pilar, Dagohoy, San Miguel, Trinidad, Ubay and Alicia.

The project can also enhance the possibility of the construction of a hydropower plant that can be installed in the Bayongan dam chute or tunnel located in Buenavista, Ubay under the public-private partnership program of the Aquino administration between NIA and SunWest Power and Water Corporation.

Apart from irrigating additional rice land, the upgrading project can greatly mitigate the effects of any El Nino phenomenon because of the sheer volume of water that could be stored at the Malinao dam. It is also expected to irrigate the areas that have been converted into rice paddies by NIA but could not be provided with water because the dam has a lower water level, and therefore, could not support fully its irrigable service area.

To recall, during the incumbency of Aumentado as governor, the Korean government through the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) provided NIA with a grant of $1 million for the Malinao dam feasibility study and detailed engineering design.

Korean Ambassador Joong-Kyung Choi, an adopted son of Bohol, facilitated the grant, and introduced into Bohol the Korean multi industry cluster (MIC) strategy which propelled South Korea as a highly industrialized country after it went through World War II and the Korean peninsula war.

As an MIC complementary project for the Malinao dam upgrading, Choi also worked for the grant of the Pilar rice processing center whose ground breaking ceremonies were officiated by Choi, Minister Man-soo Kang, then agriculture Sec. Arthur Yap, Mayor Wilson Pajo of Pilar and Aumentado.