By rosebell
With the aim of providing a continuous water supply for Manila and nearby provinces, a tunnel for Manila’s Angat Water Transmission Improvement Project was inaugurated by President Ferdinand R Marcos Jr in previous week.
While President Marcos describes Tunnel No. 5 as an achievement toward the goal of providing every Filipino with dependable access to water, this new tunnel strengthens the decades-old Umiray–Angat–Ipo–La Mesa system, which delivers water from Angat Dam to Metro Manila and Mega Manila.
According to the president’s statement during the ceremony at the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System Compound in Norzagaray, Bulacan: “This is why the establishment of Tunnel No. 5 is not only important, it is essential.”
Beside unveiling of the project marker at the Bigte Basin in Barangay Bigte, during this ceremony President Marcos acknowledged the support of concessionaires Maynilad and Manila Water, as well as well as everyone working on the project.
The process of conveying around 90% of the water used by about 20 million people in Metro Manila, Bulacan, and parts of Cavite and Rizal is done by Umiray–Angat–Ipo–La Mesa system.
While the current capacity of Tunnel No. 5 is of 1.6 billion litres per day, it increases the system’s daily transport capacity from 6 billion to almost 8 billion litres of water.
