File photo shows a boy enjoying the spray of water from a fountain at San Lorenzo Ruiz Plaza in Binondo, Manila (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/EDWIN BACASMAS)
MANILA, Philippines — There will be sufficient water supply in Metro Manila this upcoming hot, summer months, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles assured on Thursday.
During the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Nograles said the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) assured that Metro Manila currently does not have a water shortage problem.
“According to Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System Chairman and OIC Administrator Reynaldo Velasco, we expect to have a sufficient supply of water this year in Metro Manila; wala ho tayong water shortage dito sa Maynila,” Nograles said in an online briefing.
La Mesa Dam. (File photo by JAM STA. ROSA / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
“Be that as it may, the MWSS is taking steps to ensure that we have an adequate supply of water this summer, and it is also working to fast-track several projects that will address the water requirements of NCR in the long run,” he added.
Nograles said some of these projects include the controversial Kaliwa Dam project.
As their forebears have done, these Dumagats traverse the Kaliwa-Agos River in Barangay Magsaysay, Infanta, Quezon, as part of their daily routine. The government is planning to dam the Kaliwa River and provide an alternative water source for Metro Manila, but the project will mean inundating what the Dumagat consider their ancestral domain. (File photo by RICHARD A. REYES / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Many groups have expressed environmental and livelihood concerns over this project which would displace thousands of indigenous peoples.