URDANETA CITY–The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) has agreed to improve the existing communal irrigation system here at its own expense initially but the farmers benefiting from it will eventually have to pay for the service.

Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr., who is ending his nine-year term of office on June 30 this year, said this is one of the last projects he is leaving behind as part of his legacy.

Perez said with NIA’s P180 million funding, lateral canals will be built leading to the farm lands, including those in the city’s western part.

For too long, farmers in the western part are not served the irrigation system during the dry months.

Perez also clarified that while NIA is spending for the improvement of the structure, the local irrigators association will continue to own the Tanggal Perez irrigation system, named after the mayor’s late father, former Congressman Amadeo Perez Sr.

“We refuse to surrender the project to NIA. That is why, farmers are amortizing the amount that will be spent by the agency at the rate of one and a half cavan per year,” he said.

The Tanggal Perez, which draws its water from a free-flowing spring in the eastern part of the city, was built using part of the pork barrel of the late Congressman Perez, then representing the 4^th District, and turned Urdaneta into the rice bowl of Pangasinan.—LM

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