The 41-year-old Magat Dam’s spillway and bridge here will be retrofitted with P500-million funding that Senator Imee Marcos vowed to push.
Marcos, who led the groundbreaking rites of the retrofitting works here Saturday, said the project will ensure unhampered delivery of irrigation services and hydroelectric power in decades to come.
The dam has been the source of irrigation for 85,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Luzon and power generation.
“The Magat Dam is a legacy of my father so we have to see to it that it will last for more decades or a century. It is an essential foundation for national development,” Marcos said during the ceremony.
It was in 1975 when the construction of the dam started. It was completed in 1982.
Later in the day, the senator led the stakeholders’ forum where she underscored the convergence programs of different government agencies for the farmer-irrigators that push hunger mitigation, food and nutrition security, poverty alleviation and wealth creation.
She vowed to support pro-farmer funding with “the power of the purse or passing of the budget” at the legislative department.
Marcos said one of the legislative measures she has been advocating is the exclusion of value-added tax for diesel and other petroleum products being used by farmers at their farms.
After the forum, Marcos flew to Ilagan City and later to Santiago City’s Bulwagan hall wherein she led the distribution of cash assistance to 1,000 beneficiaries, amounting to PHP3,000 each. (PNA)
