Water Woes

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) stated that this “climate resilient” project would supply the country an additional 600 million litres per day (MLD).

This is equivalent to about 19% of the current water allocation provided by the Angat Dam’s Low Level Outlet (3,100 MLD), or 37% of Manila Water’s share on the dam (1,600 MLD).

Ultimately, the government had three goals for NCWS:

• First, to meet the increasing water demand in Metro Manila, Rizal, and Quezon as it had gone up from about 1,650 MLD in 2018 to 1,740 MLD in 2019;
• Second, to reduce dependency on the Angat Dam, on which the country is 97% reliant;
• And finally, to support a more effective system of forest or watershed management.

At present, the Kaliwa Dam is being pursued as a flagship project under the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build Program, with the support of government agencies and the private sector. Its construction is expected to finish by 2023

Costing a hefty total of 12.1 billion PHP (or 253 million USD), it comes to no surprise that the resources to finance and actuate this ambitious project are being outsourced. It is important to note, however, that the national government is only shouldering about 15% of the dam’s cost.

Meanwhile, the remaining 85% is being acquired through Official Development Assistance. Specifically, 10.1 billion PHP (or 211 million USD) are being borrowed solely from Beijing through the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China.

Non-governmental organizations and activist groups believe that this is alarming due to the terms of their bilateral loan agreement, saying that stipulations in the document provide for onerous conditions on the side of the Philippines.

The China-funded Kaliwa Dam will be costly not only for the Philippine government but for residents of the Rizal-Quezon area as well. In its Environmental Impact Statement, the MWSS acknowledged that the dam’s construction would displace much of its rural poor population.

Additionally, the MWSS mentioned that portions of the project area are situated within the ancestral domain (AD) of the Dumagat-Remontado indigenous people (IP)

Their AD is formally recognized through two Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title, thus guaranteeing their land rights under the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. Nonetheless, it seems that neither the government nor the CEEC has any intention of modifying its initial scheme of constructing the dam in these lands. Instead, the MWSS plans to “secure legal title[s] to effectuate resettlements” and use its cached 1.9 billion PHP for compensation to displaced communities. 

Additionally, both NGOs and government agencies have said that the Kaliwa Dam would cause environmental destruction that will only aggravate the situation of communities in the area, especially indigenous ones. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources concluded in its Environmental Analysis that the dam’s construction would only generate short-term, reversible impacts.

Full operation, on the other hand, would result in “permanent and irreversible changes” to the area’s ecology and biodiversity due to the flooding of agricultural lands and forests.