Second of two parts

URDANETA CITY — Despite the promise of year-round irrigation water from the San Roque Dam and the P4.5-billion reregulating pond downstream of the Agno River in San Manuel town, Pangasinan, farmers still complain that many of them do not get water when they need it.

John Molano, head of National Irrigation Administration's (NIA) Pangasinan Irrigation Management Office based in this city, said that there is a problem in the distribution of irrigation water.

The reregulating pond is part of the P11.25-billion Agno River Integrated Irrigation Project, the irrigation component of the San Roque Multipurpose Project.

It was financed by a loan from the China Export-Import Bank and built by China CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd., an affiliate of the China National Machinery Industry Corp.

The pond includes a 350-meter-long and 18-meter-high overflow dam, a 1-million-square-meter reservoir, two catchment sluices and two water intakes with a flow of 80 cubic meters per second.

Molano said the pond feeds water to five of the seven national irrigation systems in the province. These are the Sinocalan River Irrigation System, Agno River Irrigation System, Lower Agno River Irrigation System, Ambayoan River Irrigation System and Dipalo River Irrigation System.

These systems provide the irrigation needs of 45 percent of the province's total irrigable land. The rest of the area gets irrigation water from communal irrigation systems.

Year-round irrigation

While the year-round irrigation of farms is still being done, Molano said that distribution of irrigation water remains a problem.

"Well, it's still happening, especially in tail-end areas, where farmers quarrel over irrigation water. What we did was to rotate the supply of irrigation water," he added.

There are also farmers who plant rice even if their farms were excluded from the cropping season's programmed areas.

"Actually, every cropping season, there is a program area that is based on the capacity of the dam to supply irrigation water for the season," said Molano.

"But there are farmers who are stubborn and take the risk of planting rice. That's the problem," he added.

Oftociano Manalo, national president of the Pambansang Mannalon, Maguuma, Magbabaol at Magsasaka ng Pilipinas, an umbrella organization of rural organizations under the Agricultural Training Institute, said farmers also deal with problems of silted and unlined irrigation canals which deprive many farmers of the needed irrigation water.

In 2018, Filipino farmers were relieved of the burden of paying the P2,500 per hectare irrigation fee when Congress approved Republic Act 10969, also known as the Free Irrigation Service Act. When that law took effect, the farmers stopped paying the fee but were supposed to take on the responsibility of repairing and maintaining irrigation Canals.

That is supposed to be NIA's job, he said.

"I have opposed this before because farmers do not have the equipment to desilt an irrigation canal," Manalo said.

He said it was the NIA that maintained the canals before because they had backhoes and other heavy equipment.

"How can farmers remove the silt from a 3.5-kilometer-long canal by just using shovels, in time for a planting season?" Manalo asked.

He also said that unlined canals easily erode, impeding the flow of water to the farms.

"This is why they need to have concrete linings soon," Manalo said.

Climate change

Molano said that because of climate change, NIA had adopted some mitigation measures, such as distributing solar-powered irrigation pumps.

"We had made some adjustments. We made sure that our cropping calendars are anchored on the weather. So, our cropping calendar is adjustable. It could be advanced, or it could be late," said Molano.

Having an adjustable calendar is something that farmers need to get used to.

Juanito Español, president of the Pangasinan Federation of Irrigators Association, which is composed of 261 irrigators associations in 28 towns and two cities of the province, said he had to make sure every farmer follows the cropping calendar to maximize the use of the irrigation water.

"This is the time when I appeal to all of them to heed whatever they agreed upon in their irrigators associations," said Español.

In the past, misunderstandings over irrigation water had led to violent confrontations.

For instance, one farmer in Rosales town was shot by another in 2018 over a dispute on irrigation water.

Gov. Ramon Guico III said that the government's infrastructure projects should now include those for water impounding.

"The situation now is, if it's not raining, it doesn't rain for a long time. And when it rains, there is too much rain," Guico said.

"So, I think that we should integrate in our infrastructure projects facilities for water impounding. Maybe we should create more and bigger water impounding areas."

Impounding systems

Tom Valdez, San Roque Power Corp. (SRPC) vice president for corporate social responsibility, said the government should build more impounding systems to harvest and conserve water.

"Because of climate change, in 30 to 40 years, the available potable water will go deeper. If we don't do something, it's our lives that are at stake here," Valdez said.

"We have to start restoring our forests and building more impounding structures even if these are small, to recharge the aquifers," he added.

Valdez said SRPC is now conducting a climate resilience study to see how climate change is going to affect the dam and to look at solutions to mitigate its effects.

He said the last time the dam opened its spillway gates to release excess water was five years ago.

He said part of that is the climate resilience study for San Roque Dam is the establishment of a Forest is a Vital Resource for Life Ecological Learning Center.

"This ecological learning center will educate the youth, concerned citizens, on the value of forest, the environment, biodiversity, climate change and everything about the environment," Valdez said.

"We have to think of managing our water resources because the time will come that our problem will be a lack of water. All of us will be affected, not only the farmers," he added.

This story was produced through a grant from Internews' Earth Journalism network through the Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University.