MEXICO, Pampanga- The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) ensured that the flow of water irrigation will now reach the rice farms in the country after they formally received a total of 289 excavator equipment in a ceremony held at the Global Construct City in Mexico, Pampanga on August 7, 2024.
On Wednesday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. conducted an inspection of another 148 equipments and formally handed them over to 17 regional offices of the NIA.
The program with the theme “Empowering Agriculture Through Modernization” the ceremony is the second tranche of the project which was funded in the amount of P782 million from the 2024 National Budget.
The president previously distributed to the NIA Regional Offices the first 141 excavators last year 2023 at the Subic Bay Freeport which was funded by the 2023 National Budget in the amount of P776 million.
President Marcos also announced that this is part of the 3-Year Re-fleeting Program of the NIA from 2023 to 2025 to ensure that there is no wasted water during the rainy season and that the right amount of water will be brought to the farms during summer.
These equipment include excavator crawlers, amphibious excavators, truck tractors and dump trucks.
He said this is proof of the state’s huge investment in the agriculture sector, which is considered the backbone of the national economy.
To ensure the completion of the three-year re-fleeting program, the NIA has inserted P1-billion in the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP) approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
In this regard, NIA Administrator Engr. Eduardo Guillen said that through these additional excavators, there will be no more irrigation channels that will be blocked or overflow because the mud-thick at the bottom.
He also said that with agency’s owned equipment, the NIA will save a lot in the implementation and completion of new projects.
Meanwhile, NIA-Region III Regional Director Josephine Salazar announced that 11 of said excavators will be destined to Region 3 or Central Luzon including eight backhoes, two dump trucks and a trailer.
For Rogelio Rodriguez, a 69-year-old Palay farmer in barangay Tarcan in the city of Baliwag, the said new excavator equipment are very important to make sure that water reaches the farms up to the remote sitios.
He also asked President Marcos that apart from the continuous digging of irrigation canals, the government has to evict and remove all types of illegal structures established at the irrigation canals.
This is to prevent the presence of waste came from the said establishments built right on the irrigation canals that blocked the flow of water to farm lands.
