2 foreign builders tapped for Ecija dam project

JAEN, Nueva Ecija – President Arroyo has asked two foreign builders to undertake the construction of the long-stalled P15-billion Balintingon Reservoir Multipurpose Project in Gen. Tinio town.

Fourth district Rep. Rodolfo “Rody” Antonino told reporters here that Mrs. Arroyo has requested representatives of a South Korean corporation and a Japanese funding agency to submit an unsolicited proposal within next week.

Antonino said the foreign investors, met with the President here Friday when she attended the congressman’s birthday party in Barangay Langla.

He said that the Korean representative belongs to the KWater Corp., a firm engaged in all water projects in South Korea and which is owned by the South Korean. The Japanese entity is a funding agency similar to the Japan International Cooperating Agency (JICA), he added.  

Antonino, a stalwart of Mrs. Arroyo’s Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), said that the unsolicited proposal means that the government was not the one who sought the project but that it was subjected to the so-called “Swiss challenge,” meaning the proposal was not put up in the international community to know if there are parties interested to bankroll it. The process, he said, would last up to 60 days.

Antonino said the President wants the project to get off the ground. “She’s quite uneasy that there was no progress on the project,” he said of the BRMP which was first planned 32 years ago.

The BRMP was first conceived under the Irrigation Development Plan for Central Luzon, a reconnaissance study by the National Irrigation Administration and ECI Consultants Inc. in 1976.

The BRMP was programmed to irrigate 14,900 hectares of agricultural lands in the eastern section of Central Luzon, covering Bulacan and Nueva Ecija using the Sumacbao River in Gen. Tinio as water source.

It involves construction of an outdoor 69 kilovolt switchyard connecting the plant with the Luzon grid at the substation in Cabanatuan City, a 140-meter long, rockfill central core dam, a 19-meter high diversion weir, 109 kms. of main canals, 168 kms. of lateral and sub-lateral canals, 210 kms. of drainage facilities and service and access roads.

Once finished, it is programmed to benefit 9,152 families in Cabanatuan City, Gapan City, and the municipalities of Sta. Rosa, Gen. Tinio and Penaranda – all in Nueva Ecija and the Bulacan towns of San Ildefonso and San Miguel.

In 2004, the dam cost only P5 billion. Its cost rose to P8.3 billion in 2006 and to P15 billion at present.

A detailed feasibility study made by NIA in 1983 which was financed by the Italian government proposed the construction of the dam with a reservoir capacity of 572 million cubic meters to irrigate 18,800 hectares.

Antonino said that the project has been reprogrammed to supplement the water supply requirements of the Angat Dam. “With Balintingon, there will be adequate supply of water for Angat and there will be no problem anymore,” he said.