KALIBO, Aklan – The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of Aklan urged government agencies concerned to hasten the rerouting of lateral irrigation canals affected by the ongoing expansion of the Kalibo International Airport.
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) previously committed P40 million for the irrigation canal.
The SP called out the Department of Agriculture (DA) and National Irrigation Administration (NIA) to address the delays in the rerouting of the canal covered by the Aklan River Irrigation System (RIS).
The Aklan RIS is the primary source of irrigation water of farmlands in the Kalibo barangays of Pook, Nalook, Briones, and Tigayon.
The five-kilometer lateral canal provides year-round irrigation to 98 hectares of agricultural lands in the vicinity of the airport, according to SP member Emmanuel Soviet Russia Dela Cruz, chairperson of the SP committee on agriculture.
These farmlands will be adversely affected by the airport expansion and the ongoing construction of the airport circumferential road.
Data from NIA showed that the rerouting and impending closure of irrigation canals and acquisition of road right-of-way would cost around P98 million.
“We are worried. Before the irrigation canals get covered by the airport development, we hope the rerouting would be done,” Dela Cruz stressed, so as not to hamper the delivery of irrigation water to farming communities.
In 2014, the Aklan SP through the committee on agriculture requested then DA secretary Proceso Alcala for financial assistance for the rerouting of NIA’s lateral canals that serve rice lands of Kalibo and New Washington towns.
Then Transportation secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya was also asked in 2015 to allocate P100 million for the rerouting of irrigation canals./PN
